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>ETTERS
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT:
H. C. CARET,
SECOND EDITION.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY IIURD AND HOUGHTON,
459 Brooub Stqeet.
1868.
,cb,Googlc
,cb,Googlc
PREFACE.
At the date, now fourteen years since, of the first publication
of these letters, the important case of authors versus readers —
makers of books versm consumers of facts and ideas — had for
several years been again on trial in the high court of the people.
But few years previously the same plaintiffs had obtained a verdict
giving large extension of time to the monopoly privileges they had
so long enjoyed. Not content therewith, they now claimed greater
space, desiring to have those privileges so extended as to include
within their domain the vast population of the British Empire.
To that hour no one had appeared before the court on the part
of the defendants, prepared seriously to question the plaintiff'
assertion to the effect that literary property stood on the same
precise footing, and as much demanded perpetual and universal
recognition, as property in a house, a mine, a farm, of a ship. As
a consequence of failure in this respect there prevailed, and most
especially throughout the Eastern States, a general impression
that there was really but one side to the question ; that the
cause of the plaintiffs was that of truth ; that in the past might
had triumphed over right ; that, however doubtful might be the
expediency of making a decree to that effect, there could be lit-
tie doubt that justice would thereby be done ; and that, while re-
jecting as wholly inexpedient the idea of perpetuity, there could
be but slight objection to so &r recognizing that of universality
as to grant to British authors the same privileges that thus far had
been accorded to our own.
Throughout those years, nevertheless, the effort to obtain from the
legislative authority a decree to that effect had proved an utter fail-
ure. Time and ag^n had the case been up for trial, but as often
had the plaintiffs' counsel wholly failed to agree among themselves
as to the consequences that might reasonably he expected to result
..byGoogIc
4 FKEFACE.
from recognition of their clients' so-called rights. Northern and
Eastern advocates, representing districts in which schools and col-
leges abounded, insisted that perpetuity and universality of privi-
lege must result in giving the defendants cheaper books. South-
em counsel, on the contrarj', representing districts in which schools
were rare, and students few in number, insisted that extension of
privilege would have the effect of giving to planters handsome
editions of the works they needed, while preventing the pubH-
cation of " cheap and nasty " editions, fitted for the " mudsills " of
Northern States. Fdling thus to agree among themselves they
failed to convince the jury, mainly representing, as it did, the
Centre and the West, as a consequence of which, verdicts favor-
able to the defendants had, on each and every occasion, been ren-
dered.
A thoroughly adverse popular will having thus been manifested,
it was now determined to try the Senate, and here the chances
for privilege were better. "With a population little greater than
that of Pennsylvania, the New England States had six times the
Senatorial representation. With readers not a fifth as numerous
as were those of Ohio, Carolina, Florida, and Georgia had thrice
the number of Senators. By combining these heterogeneous ele-
ments the will of the people — so frequently and decidedly ex-
pressed — might, it was thought, he set aside. To that end, the
Secretary of State, himself one of the plaintiffs, had negotiated
the treaty then before the Senate, of the terms of which the de-
fendants had been kept in utter ignorance, and by means of
which the principle of taxation without representation was now to
be established.
Such was the state of affairs at the date at which, in compli-
ance with the request of a Pennsylvania Senator, the author of
these letters put on paper the ideas he had already expressed to him
in conversation. By him and other Senators they were held to be
conclusive, so conclusive that the plaintiffs were speedily brought
to see that the path of safety, for the present at least, lay in the
direction of abandoning the treaty and allowing it to be quietly
laid in the grave in which it since has rested. That such should
have been their course was, at the time, much regretted by
the defendants, as they would have greatly preferred an earnest
and thorough discussion of the question before the court. Had
opportunity been afforded it iDOuld have been discussed by one, at
..byGoogIc
PREFACE. 5
least, cf the mister minds of the 'senate ,^ and ho discussed as to
have satisfied the whole body of our people, luthors nnd editors
perhaps excepted, thit their cause wis that of truth and justice
and that if m the past there had been eiror it had been th'it of
excess of hberality tonaids the plaintiffs, in the suit
The issue that nas then e\idcd is now again presented emi
nent coimsel hmng been emplojed, and the opening speech hav
ing just now been made.'^ Having read it carefully oefind m it
however, nothing beyond a labored effort at reducing the bteriry
profession to a level with those of the grocer and the tillow-chan
dler. It is an elaborate reproduction of Oliver Twist's cry for
" more ! more ! " — a new edition of the " Beggar's Petition," pe-
rusal of which must, as we think, have affected with profound dis-
gust many, if not even most, of the eminent persons therein re-
ferred to. In it, we have presented for consideration the sad case
of one distinguished writer and admirable man who, by means of
bis pen alone, had been enabled to pass through a long life of
most remarkable enjoyment, although his money receipts had, by
reason of the alleged injustice of the consumers of his products,
but little exceeded $200,000 ; that of a lady writer who, by means
of a sensational novel of great merit and admirably adapted to the
modes of thought of the hour, had been enabled to earn in a sin-
gle year, the large sum of $40,000, though still deprived of two
hundred other thousands she is here said to have fairly earned ;
of a historian whose labors, after deducting what had been applied
to the creation of a most valuable library, had scarcely yielded
fifty cents per day ; of another who had had but $1000 per month ;
and, passing rapidly from the sublime to the ridiculous, of a school
copy-book maker who had seen his improvements copied, without
compensation to himself, for the benefit of iijiglish children.
These may and perhaps should be regarded as very sad facts ;
but had not the picture a brighter side, and might it not have been
well for the eminent counsel to have presented both ? Might he
not, for instance, have told his readers that, in addition to the
$200,000 above referred to, and wholly as acknowledgment of his
literary services, the eminent recipient had for many years en-
joyed a diplomatic sinecure of the highest order, by means of
which he had been enabled to give his time to the collection of
materials for his most important works ? Might he not have fur-
1 Senator Clayton of Delaware. ^ See Atlantic Moalldy for October.
,cb,Googlc
6 PREFACE.
ther told us how other of the distinguished men he had named,
as well as many others whose names had not been given, have,
in a mntiner precisely similar, been rewarded for their literary
labors ? Might he not have said something of the pecuniary and
societary successes that had so closely followed the appearance
of the novel to whose publication he had attributed so great an
influence ? Might he not, and with great propriety, have furnished
an extract from the books of the "New York Ledger," exhibiting
the tens and hundreds of thousands that had been paid for articles
which few, if any, would care to read a second time ? Might he
not have told his readers of the excessive earnings of public lec-
turers ? Might he not, too, have smd a word or two of the tricks
and contrivances that are being now resorted to by men and
women — highly respectable men and women too — for evading,
on both sides of the Atlantic, the spirit of the copyright laws
while complying with their letter? Would, however, such a
course of proceeding have answered his present purpose? Per-
haps not ! His business was to pass around the hat, accompany-
ing it with a strong appeal to the charity of the defendants, and
this, so far as we can see, is all that thus far has been done.
M^ht not, however, a similar, and yet stronger, appeal now be
made in behalf of other of the public servants ? At the close
of long lives devoted to the public service, Washington, Hamilton,
Clay, Clayton, and many other of our most eminent men have
found themselves largely losers, not gainers, by public service.
The late Governor Andrew's services were surely worth as
much, per hour, as those of the authoress of " Uncle Tom's Cab-
in," yet did he give five years of his life, and perhaps his life it-
self, for far less than half of what she had received for the labors
of a single one. Deducting the expenses incident to his official
life, Mr. Lincoln would have been required to labor for five and
twenty years before he could have received as much as was paid to
the author of the " Sketch Book." The labors of the historian
of Ferdinand and Isabella have been, to himself and his family,
ten times more productive than have been those of Mr. Stanton,
the great war mmister of the age. — Turning now, from civil to
military life, we see among ourselves officers who have but re-
cently rendered the largest service, but who are now quite coolly
whistled down the wind, to find where they can the means of
support for wives and children. Studying the Usts of honored
..byGoogIc
PREFACE. 7
dead, we find therein the names of men of high renown whose
widows and children are now starving on pensions whose annual
amount is less than the monthly receipt of any one of the authors
above referred to.
Such. being the facts, and, that they are facts cannot be denied,
let us now suppose a proposition to be made that, with a view to
add one, two, three, or four thousand dollars to the annual income
of ex-presidents, and ex-legislators, and half as much to that of
the widows and children of distinguished officers, there should be
estaWished a general pension syst«m, involving an expenditure of
the public moneys, and consequent taxation, to the extent of ten or
fifteen millions a year, and then inquire by whom it might be sup-
ported. Would any single one of the editors who are now so ear-
nest in their appeals for further grants of privilege venture so to
do ? Would not the most earnest of them be among the first to
visit on such a proposition the most withering denunciations ?
Judging from what, in the last two years, we have read in various
editorial columns, we should say that they would be so. Would,
however, any member of either house of Congress venture to
commit himself before the world by offering such a proposi-
tion? We doubt it very much. Nevertheless it is now coolly
proposed to establish a system that would not only tax the present
generation as many millions annually, but that would grow in
amount at a rate far exceeding the growth of population, doing
this in the hope that future essayists might be enabled to count
their receipts by half instead of quarter millions, and future nov-
elists to collect abroad and at home the hundreds of thousands
that, as we are assured, are theirs of right, and that are now denied
them. When we shall have determined to grant to the widows
and children of the men who in the last half dozen years have
perished in the public service, some slight measure of justice, it
may be time to consider that question, but until then it should
most certainly be deferred.
The most active and earnest of all the advocates of literary
rights was, two years since, if the writer's memory correctly serves
him, the most thorough and determined of all our journalists in
insisting on the prompt dismissal of thousands and tens of thousands
of men who, at their country's call, had abandoned the pursuits
and profits of civil life. Did he, however, ever propose that they
should be allowed any extra pay on which to live, and by means
..byGoogIc
8 PREFACE,
of which to support their wives and children, in the interval be-
tween discharge from military service and re-establishment in
their old pursuits Nothin, of thekmd is now iCLollected. Would
he now advocate the enactment of a law bj means of which the
widow and children of a major genera! who had fallen on tlie field
should, so far as p-iy wis concerned be pliced nn a level with an
ordinary police oiheer' He might but th'it he would do so could
not with any certainty he affirmed bhe and tl ev would, never-
theless, seem to ha^e claims on the consideration of American
men and women fully equal to those of the luthoicss of ■■ Lady
Audle/s Secret," already, as she is understood to be, in the annual
receipt from this country of more than thrice the amount of the
widow's pension, in addition to tens of thousands at home.^
It is, however, as we are gravely told, but ten per cent, that she
asks, and who could or should object to payment of such a pit-
tance? Not many, perhaps, if unaccompanied by monopoly priv-
leges that would multiply the ten by ten and make U an hundred !
Alone, the cost to our readers might not now exceed an annual mil-
lion. Let Congress then pass an act appropriating that sum to be
distributed among foreign authors whose works had been, or might
be republished here. That should have the writer's vote, but he
objects, and will continue to object, to any legislative action that
shall tend towards giving to already " great and wealthy " publish-
ing houses the nine millions that they certainly will charge for
collecting the single one that is to go abroad.
" Great and wealthy" as they are here said to he, and as they
certainly are, we are assured that even they have serious troubles,
against which they greatly need to be protected. In common with
many heretofore competing railroad companies they have found
that, however competition among themselves might benefit the
public, it would tend rather to their own injury, and therefore
have they, by means of most stringent rules, established a "cour-
tesy " copyright, the effect of which exhibits itself in the fact,
tbat the prices of reprinted books are now rapidly approaching
those of domestic production. Further advances in that direction
1 The Loniion correspondent of Scribner and Co. 'a '-Boi^ Buyer" says that
MisB Draddon'a first publisher, Mr. Tinsley (who died suddenly last yeor], called
the ekgant villa he built for himself at Putney "Andley House," in grateful remem-
brance of the " Lady " to whose " Secret " be was indebfed for fortune ; and Miss
Braddon herself, through her man of business, haa recently purchased a stately
jnanMon of Queen Anne's lime, " Litclifield House,"
,cb,Googlc
might, however, prove dangerous ; " courtesy " rules not, as we are
here informed, being readily susceptible of enforcement A salu-
tary fear of interlopers still restrains those " g t u 1 w Ithy
houses," at heavy annual cost to themselves, and vith g eat
ing to consumers of their products. That tl ay II be
changed ; that they may build up fortunes w th t II ad
rapidity ; that Ihej may, to a still greater exte t p 1 the
business of publication ■ and, thit the people maj It d to that
effect ill that is now needed is thit Cfngress h II iis ry
simple law by means of nhich a few men 11 Eist m t 1 II be
enabled to monopolize the business of republication secure from
either Fastern or Western com] etition That dene reiders will
be likelj to see 1 stite of things simdar to thit now exhibited at
Chicago wheie radroad companies that haie secured to them
seheb all the exits and entrinces of the (,ity ire as we are told,
at this moment engaged in organizing a combinatjon thit shall
hiv the effect of dividing m fur proportion among the wolves
the numerous flocks of sheep
On ill former cessions Northern advocites of literary monopo
lies assured us that it nas in thit direction ind m thit ilone
we were to look for the cheapening of books Niw nothing
of this sort IS at all pretended On the contrirj we ire here told
of the extreme impropriety of a system which makes it necessary
for a IJew England essayist to accept a single dollar for a volume
that under other circumstances would sell for half a guinea ; of the
wrong to such essayists that results from the issue of cheap " peri-
odicals made up of selections from the reviews and magazines of
Europe ; " of the " abominable extravagance of buying a great and
good novel in a perishable form for a few cents ; ',' of the increased
accessibility of books by the "masses of the people" that must
result from increasing prices ; and of the greatly increased facility
with which circulating libraries may be formed whensoever the
" great and wealthy houses " shall have been given power to claim
from each andevery reader of Dickens's novels, as their share of the
monopoly profits, tbrice as much as he now pays for the book it^
self. This, however, is only history repeating itself with a little
change of place, the argument of to-day, coming from the North,
being an almost exact repetition of that which, twenty years since,
came from the South— from the mouths of men who rejoiced in
the fact that no newspapers were published in their districts, and
..byGoogIc
10 PREFACE.
who well blew ihat the way towards preventing the dissemination
of knowledge lay in the direction of granting the monopoly privi-
leges that had been asked. The anti-slavery men of the present
thus repeat tlie argument of the pro-slavery men of the past, ex-
tremes being thus brought close together.
Our people are here assured that Russia, Sweden, and
other countries arc ready to unite with them in recognizing the
" rights " now claimed. So, too, it may be well believed, would it
be with China, Japan, Bokhara, and the Sandwich Islands. Of
what use, however, would be such an union ? Would it increase
the facilities for transplanting the ideas of American authors ? Are
not the obstacles to such transplantation already sufficiently great,
and is it desirable that they should be at all increased ? Germany
has already tried tJie experiment but whether or not. when the
time shall come, the existing treaties will be renewed is very doubt
fill. Where she now pays dollais she probablv receives cents
Discussion of the question there his led to the translation and re
p bj ti f the letters heie now republished and the iiews
h P d hive receiicd the public approbation of men
^^ P ire entitled to the highest considerition "Uhtt
ha. tlyb 1 done in that Ltuntry m reference to domestic
p> ht a d hit his been the efiect, are well exhibited in an
rt I f English jounii! just nowrcceiied ipartofwbich.
Am n jshawng been sub&Ututed for German ones is
h a f Hows —
"We have so long enjoyed the advantage of unrestricted com-
petition in the production of the works of the best English writers
of the past, that we can hardly realize what our position would
have been had the right to produce Shakespeare, or Milton, or
Goldsmith, or any of our great classic writers, been monopolized
by any one publishing-house, — certainly we should never have
seen a shilling Shakespeare, or a half-crown Milton ; and Shake-
speare, instead of being, as he is, ' familiar in our mouths as house-
hold words,' would have been .known but to the scholar and the
stndent. We are &r from condemning an enlightened system of
copyright, and have not a word to say in favor of unreasoning
competition ; but we do think that publishers and authors often
lose sight of their own interest in adhering to a system of high
pnces and restricted sale. Tennyson's works supply us with a
case in point — here, to possess a set of Tennyson's poems, a
reader must pay something like 38s. or 40s. — in Boston you may
buy a magnificent edition of ail his works in two volumes for some-
..byGoogIc
PREFACE. 11
thing like 16s., and a small edition for some four or five shillirgs.
The result is tlie purchasers in England are numbered by hun-
dreds, in America by thousands. Tn Germany we have almost a
parallel case. There the works of the great German poets, of
Schiller, of Goethe, of Jean Paul, of Wieland, and of Herder, are
at the present time ' under the protecting privileges of the most
illustrious German Confederation,' and, by special privilege, the
exclusive property of the Stuttgart publishing firm of J. G- Cotta.
On the forthcoming 9th of Novemher this monopoly mil cease,
and all the works of the above-mentioned poets will he open to
the speculation of German publishers generally. It may be inter-
esting to our readers to learn the history of these pecnliar legal
restrictions, which have so long prevailed in the German book-
trade, and the results likely to follow from their removal,
"Until the beginning of this century literary piracy was not
prohibited in the German States. As, however, protection of
literary productmns was, at last, emphatically urged, the Acts of
the Confederation (on the reconstruciion of Germany in the year
1815) contained a passage to the effect, that the Diet should, at
its first meeting, consider the necessity of uniform laws for secur-
ing the rights of literary men and publishers. The EKet moved in
the matter in the year 1818, appointing a commission to settle this
question ; and, thanks to tiat supreme profoundness which was
ever applied to the affairs of the father-land by this illu.strious
body, after twenty-two years of deliberation, on the 9th of Nov.,
1837, decreed the law, that the rights of authorship should be ac-
knowledged and respected, at least, for the space of ten years ;
copyright for a longer period, however, being granted for volumin-
ous and costly works, and for the works of the great German poets.
"In the course of time, however, a copyright for ten years
proved insufficient even for the commonest works ; it was there-
fore extended by a decree of the Diet, dated June 19, 1845, over
the natural term of the author's life and for thirty years after his
death. With respect to the works of all authors deceased before
the 9th of November, 1837 — including the works of the poets
enumerated above — the Diet decided that they couid all be pro-
tected until the 9th of November, 1867.
" It was to be expected that the firm of J. G. Cotta, favored until
now with so valuable a monopoly, would make all possible exertions
not to be surpassed in the coming battle of the Publishers, though it
is a somewhat curious sight to see this haughty house, after having
used its privileges to the last moment, descend now suddenly from
its high monopolistic _ stand into the arena of competition, and
compete for public favor with its plebeian rivals. Availing itself
of the advantage which the monopoly hitherto attached to it natu-
rally gives it, the house has just commenced issuing a cheap
edition of the German classics, under the title ' Bibliothek fiir
Alle. Meisterwerke deutsclier Classiker,' in weekly parts, 6 cts.
..byGoogIc
12 PREFACE.
eacii ; containing the selected works of Schiiier, at the price of
7o cts., and the selected works uf Goethe, at the price of $1.50.
And now, just as the monopoly is gliding from their haDds, the
same firm offers, in a small IGmo edition, Schiller's complete
works, 12 vols., for 75 cts.
" Another publisher, A. H. Payne, of Leipzig, announces a com-
plete edition of Schiller's works, including some unpublished
pieces, for 75 cts.
" Again, the well-known firm of F. A. Brockhaus holds out a
prospectus of a corrected critical edition of the German poets of
the eighteenth and nineteenth century, which we have every
reason to believe will merit success. A similar enterprise is
announced, just now, by the Bibliographical Institution of Hild-
burghausen, under the title, ' Bibliothek der deutschen National-
literatur,' edited by Heinr. Kurz, in weekly parts of 10 sheets, at
the price of 12 cts. each. Even an illustrated edition of the
Classics will be presented to the public, in consequence of the ex-
piration of the copyright. The Grote'sche Buchhandlung, of
Beriin, is issuing the ' Hausbibliothek deutscher Classiker,' with
wood-cut illustrations by such eminent artiste as Richter, Tliu-
mann, and others ; and the first part, just published, containing
Louise, by Voss, with truly artistic illustrations, has met with gen-
eral approbation. But, above all, the popular edition of the
poets, issued by G. Hempel, of Beriin, under the general title of
'National Bibliothek sammtlicher deutscher Classiker,' 8vo. in
parts, 6 cts. each, seems destined to surpass all others in popular-
ity, though not in merit 0/ the first part {already published),
containing Burger's Poems, 300,000 c()ptes have been, sold, and
150,000 subscriber^ names Have been registered for the eomphu
series. This immense sale, unequalled in ike annals of the German
book4rade, will certainly induce many other publishers to embark
in similar enterprises." — Triibner's Literary Becwd, Oct. 1867,
Judging from this, there will, five years hence, be a million of
families in possession of the works of Schiller, Burger, Goethe,
Herder and others, that thus far have been compelled to dispense
with their perusal. Sad to think, however, tbey will be of those
cheap editions now so much despised by American advocates of
monopoly privileges ! How much better for the German people
would it not have been had their Pariiament recognized the per-
petuity of literai-y rights, and thus enabled the " great and wealthy
house ■■ of Cotta and Co. to carry into full efliect the idea that
their own editions should alone be published, thereby adding other
millions to the very many of which they already are the owners !
At this moment a letter from Mr. Bayard Taylor advises us
that German circulating libraries impede the sale of books ; that
..byGoogIc
PREFACE. 13
the circulation of even liighly popular works is limited within
20,000 ; aod that, as a necessary consequence, German authors
are not paid so well as of right they should be.^ This, however,
is precisely the state of things that, as we are now assured, should
be brought about in this country, prices being raised, and readers
being driven to the circulating library by reason of the deficiency
of the means required for forming the private one. It is the one
that wouli be brought about should our luthors, unhappily for
themsehes succeed m obtaining what is now demanded.
The daj his passed n thiscountrj for the recognition of either
perpetuity or um\ersality of literary iq!fs The wealthy Caro-
linian inxious tl at books might be high in price, and knowing
well that monopoly priMleges were opposed to freedom, gladly co-
opeiated w th Listern authors ind publishers iiiti-slavery as they
professed to be The enfranchised black on the contrary, desires
thit books mij be c! eap ^d to that end he and his representa-
tives will be found in ^ll the future co-operating with the people
of the Centre and the T\ est in maintain ng the doctrine that lite-
rary ^itj^cy^s evist in Mrtue of grants from tl e people who own
the matenals out of which books are made ; that those privileges
have been perhaps already too far extended ; that there exists not
even a shadow of reason for any further extension ; and that to
grant what now is asked would be a positive wrong to the many
millions of consumers, as well as an obstacle to be now placed in
the road towards civilization.
The amount now paid for public service under our various gov-
ernments is more than, were it fairly distributed, would suffice for
giving proper reward to all. Unfortunately the distribution is
very bad, the largest compensation generally going to those who
render the smallest service. So, too, is it with regard to literary
employmenls ; and so is it likely to continue throughout the
future. Grant all that now is asked, and the effect will be seen
in the fact, that of the vastly increased taxation ninety per cent,
will go to those who work for money alone, and are already over-
paid, leaving but little to be added to the rewards of conscien-
tious men with whom their work is a labor of love, as is the case
with the distinguished author of the " History of the Nether-
Twenty years ago, Macaulay advised his literary friends to be
1 New York Tridme, Nuv. 29,
..byGoogIc
14 PREFACE,
content, believing, as ho told them, that the existing " wholesome
copyright" wiis likely to "share in the disgrace and danger" of
the more extended one which they then so much desired to see
created. Let oiir authors reflect on this advice ! Success now,
were it possible that it should be obtained, would be productive of
great danger in the already not distant future. In the natural
course of things, most of our authorship, for many years to come,
will be found east of the Hudson, most of the buyers of books,
meanwhile, being found south and west of that river. Interna-
tional copyright will give to the former limited territory an abso-
lute monopoly of the business of republication, the then gi'eat
cities of the West being almost as completely deprived of partici-
pation therein as are now the towns and cities of Canada and
Australia, On the one side, there will be found a few thousand
persons interested in maintaining the monopolies that had been
granted to authors and publishers, foreign and domestic. On the
other, sixty or eighty millions, tired of taxation and determined that
books shall be more cheaply furnished. "War will then come, and
the domestic author, sharing in the " disgrace and danger " attend-
ant upon his alliance with foreign authors and domestic publishers,
may perhaps find reason to rejoice if the people fail to arrive at
the conclusion that the last extension of his own privileges had
been inexpedient and should be at once recalled. Let him then
study that well-known fable ef _ffisop entitled " The Dog and the
Shadow," and take warning from it !
The writer of these Letters had no personal interest in the
question therein discussed. Himself an author, he has since glad-
ly witnessed the translation and republication of his works in vari-
ous countries of Europe, his sole reason for writing them having
been found in a desire for strengthening the many against the
few by whom the former have so long, to a greater or less ex-
tent, been enslaved. To that end it is that he now writes, fully
believing that the right is on the side of the consumer of books,
and not with their producers, whether authors or publishers.
Between the two there is, however, a perfect harmony of all
real and permanent interests, and greatly will he be rejoiced if he
shall have succeeded in persuading even some few of his literary
countrymen that such is the fact, and that the path of safety will
be found in the direction of letting well enough aloke.
The reward of literary service, and the estimation in which
..byGoogIc
PREFACE. 15
literary men are held, botli grow with growth in that power of
cotnbinatJon which results from diversification of employments ;
from bringing consumers and producers close together ; and from
thus stimulating the activity of the societary circulation. Both
decline as producers and consumers become more widely sepa-
rated and as the circulation becomes more languid, as is the case
in all the countries now subjected to the British free trade influ-
ence. Let American authors then unite in asking of Congress
the establishment of a fixed and steady policy whicli shall have
the effect of giving us that industrial independence without which
there can be neither political nor literary independence. That
once secured, they would thereafter find no need for asking the
establishment of a system of taxation which would prove so
burdensome to our people as, in the end, to be ruinous to them-
selves.
H. C. C.
Philadelphia,
Bee. 1867.
..byGoogIc
,cb,Googlc
LETTERS
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
LETTER I.
Dear Sik : — You ask for information calculated to enable jou
to act underslandiiigly in reference to the international copyright
treaty now awaiting the action of tlie Senate. The subject is an
important one, more so, as I tliink, than is commonly supposed,
and being very glad to see that it is now occupying your attention,
it will afford me much pleasure to comply, as far as in my power,
with jour request.
Independently of the principle involved, it seems to me that the
course now proposed to be pursued is liable to very grave objec-
tion. It is an attempt to substitute the action of tiie Executive for
that of the Legislature, and in a case in which the latter is fuUy
competent to do the work. For almost twenty years, Congress
has been besieged with applications on the subject, but without
effect. Senate Committees have reported in favor of the measure,
but the lower House, composed of the direct representatives of the
people, has remained unmoved. In despair of succeeding under
any of the ordinary fonns of proceeding, its friends have invoked
the legislation of the Executive power, and the result is seeu iu
the fact, that the Senate, as a branch of the Executive, is now
caUed upon to sanction-a law, in the enactment of which the House
of Representatives could not be induced to unite. This may be,
and doubtless is, in accordance with the letter of llic Constitution,
but it is so decidedly in opposition to its spirit that, even were there
no other objection, the treaty should be rejected. That, however,
is but the smallest of the objections to it.
If the people required such a law, nothing could be more easy
..byGoogIc
18 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
than to act in this case as we have done before in similar ones.
When we desired to arrange for reciprocity in relation to naviga-
tion, we fixed the terms, and declared that all the other nations of
the earth might accede to them if they would. No treaty was
needed, and we therefore became bound to no one. It was in our
power to repeal the law when we chose. So, i^in, in regard to
patents. Foreigners exercise the power of patenting their inven-
tions, but they do so under a law that is liable to repeal at the
pleasure of Congress. In both of these cases, the bills under-
went public discussion, and the people that were to be subjected
to the law, saw, and understood, and amended the bills before they
became laws. Contrast, I beg of you, this course of proceedin<r
with the one now proposed to be pursued in reference to one of
the largest branches of our internal trade. Finding that no bill
that could he prepared could stand the ordeal of public discussion,
a treaty has been negotiated, the terms of which seem to bo known
to none but tiie negotiators, and that treaty has been sent to your
House ^of Congress, there to be discussed in secret session by a
number of gentlemen, most of whom have given little attention to
the general principle involved, while not even a single one can be
supposed qualified to judge of the practical working of the pi-o-
visions by whose aid the principle is to be carried out Once
confirmed, the treaty can be changed only with the consent of
England. Here we have secrecy in the making of laws, and ir-
revocability of the law when made ; whereas, in all other cases,
■we have had publicity and revocability. Legislation like that now
proposed would seem to be better suited to the monarchies of
Europe, than to the republic of the United States, The reason
why this extraordinary course has been adopted is, that the people
have never required the passage of such a law, and could not be
persuaded to sanction it now, were it submitted to them.
The French and English copyright treaty has, as I understand,
caused great deterioration in the value of property that had been
accumulated in Fi-ance under the system that had before existed,
and such may prove to be the case with the one now under con-
sideration. Should it be so, the deterioration would prove to be
fifty times greater in amount than it was in France. Will it do
so? No one knows, because those whose interests are to be
affected by the law are not permitted to read the law that is to be
made. They know well that they have not been consulted, and
..byGoogIc
TNTEENATIONAL COPYBIGHT. 19
eqiially well do tliey know that the negotiator is not famiiiar with
the trade that is to be regulated, and is liable, therefore, to have
givew his assent to provisions that will work injury never contem-
plated by him at the time the treaty had been made. Again, pro-
visions may have been inserted, with a view to prevent injury to
the publishers, or to the public, that would be found in practice to
be utterly futile, or even to augment the difficulty instead of
remedying it. That such result would follow the adoption of some
of those whose insertion has been urged, I can positively assert
In this state of things, it would seem to be proper that we should
know whether the provisions of the treaty were submitted to the
examination of any of the parties interested for or against it, and
if so, to whom. So far as I can learn, none of those opposed to it
have had any opportimity afforded them of reading the Hw and if
any advice has been t k t nust h b n f tl p b! h
who are in favor of it 1! ntl n h w p ly
the persons likely mo t to p fat bj tl d pt f tl p pi
recognized by the treaty dthm ddta tthrs
the provisions for carry n th t p [I nt ff t th at
must be the advantag t tl 1 Th j tl f n be
regarded as little mor th n tl i nb. f th 1 f tl u-
English friends, who w n 11 tl B t 1 M t n the
one hand, while on th th h j w th u 1 tl f d 1
counselling the Amer A t tj n at 1 d h
circumstances, would 1 tl bk ly t p d f th ^ n al
interests of the Amei a p pi
When, in 1837, the ten pt w first d t f En^hsh
authors the privilege f py 1 1, a 1 b f th n n ted
in an agreement declaring a certain New York house to be " the
sole authorized publishers and issuers " of their works. Now, had
that house volunteered its advice to the Secretary of State of that
day, he would scarcely have regarded it as sufficiently disinter-
ested to be qualified for the office it had undertaken ; and yet, if
any advice in the present case has been asked, it would seem that
it must have been from houses that now look forward to filling
the place then occupied by that single one, and that cannot,
therefore, be regarded as fitted for the office of counsellors to the
Secretary of the present day. Recollect, I am, as is everybody
else, entirely in the dark. No one knows who furnished advice as
to the treaty, nor does any one know what is to be the law when it
..byGoogIc
20 INTERNATIONAL COpYEIGHT.
shall have been confirmed. Neither can auy one tell how the
errors that may now be made will be corrected. With a law
regularly passed through both Houses of Congress, these difficul-
ties could not arise. They are a natural consequence of this
attempt to substitute the will of the Executive for that of the
people, as expressed by the House of Representatives, and should,
as I think, weigh strongly on the nainds of Senators when called
to vote upon the treaty. Their constitueuts have a right to see,
and to discuss, the laws tbat are proposed before those laws are
finally made, and whenever it is attempted, as in the present case,
to stifle discussion, we may reasonably infer tbat wrong is about to
be done. This is, I believe, the first case in which, on account of
the unpopularity of the law proposed, it has been attempted to de-
prive the popular branch of Congress of its constitutional share in
legislation, and if this be sanctioned it is difficult to see wJiat other
interests may not be subjected to similar action on the part of the
Executive. In all such cases, it is the first step that is most diffi-
cult, and before making the one now proposed, you should, as I
think, weigh well the importance of the precedent about to be
established. No one can hold iti greater respect than I do, the
honorable gentleman who negotiated this treaty ; but in thus
attempting to substitute the executive will for legislative action, he
seems to me to have made a grave mistake.
In the claim now made in behalf of English authors, there is
great apparent justice ; but that which is not true, often puts on
the appearance of truth. For thousands of years, it seemed so
obviously true that the sun revolved around tlie earth that the fact
was not disputed, and yet it came finally to be proved that the
earth revolved around the sun. Ricardo's theory of the occupa-
tion of the earth, the foundation-stone of his system, bad so much
apparent truth to recommend it, that it was almost universally
adopted, and is now the basis of the whole British politico-econo-
mical system ; and yet the facU are directly the reverse of what
Ricardo had supposed them to be. Such being the case, it might
be that, upon a full examination of the subject, we shouldfind that,
in admitting the claim of foreign authors, we should be doing in-
justice and not justice. The English press has, it is true, for
many years been engaged in teaching us that we were little better
than thieves or pirates ; but that press has been so uniformly and
unsparingly abusive of us, whenever we have failed to grant all
..byGoogIc
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 21
that it has claimed, that its views are enlitled U> Httle weight. At
home, many of our authors have taken the same side of the ques-
tion ; and the only answer that has ever, to my knowledge, been
made, has been, that if we admitted the clmms of foreign authors,
the prices of books would he raised, and the people would be de-
prived of their accustomed supplies of cheap literature ^ as I
think, a very weak sort of defense. If nothing better than this
can be said, we may as well at once plead guilty to the charge of
piracy, and commence a new and more honest course of action.
Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal
an author's brains that our people may be cheaply taught. To
admit that the end justifies the means, would be to adopt the line
of argument so often used by English speakers, in and out of
Parliament, when they defend the poisoning of tlie Chinese people
by means of opium introduced in defiance of their government,
because it furnishes revenue to India ; or that which teaches that
Canada should he retained as a British colony, because of the
fecility it affords for violation of our laws ; or that which would
have us regard smugglers, in general, as the great reformers of the
age. We stand in need of no such morality as this. We can
afford to pay for what we want; but. even were it otherwise, our
motto here, and everywhere, should be the old French one ;
"jFcfW ee que doy^ advienne qvs powrra" — Act justly, and leave
the result to Providence. Before acting, however, we should
deterniicie on which side justice lies. Uoless I am greatly in
error, it is not on the side of international copyright My rea-
sons for this belief will now be given.
The facts or ideas cont^ned in a book constitute its body. The
language in which they are conveyed to the reader constitute the
clothing of the body. For the first no copyright is allowed.
Humboldt spent many years of his life In collecting facts relative
to the southern portion of this continent; yet so soon as he gave
them to the light they ceased to be his, and became the common
property of all mankind. Captain Wilkes and his companions spent
several years in exploring the Southern Ocean, and brought from
there a vast amount of new facts, all of which became at once com-
mon property. Sir John Franklin made numerous expeditions to
the North, during which he collected many facts of high importance,
for which he had no copyright So with Park, Burkhard, and
others, who lost their lives in the exploration of Africa. Captain
..byGoogIc
22 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
McQure has just acconipli&Iicd tbe Northwest Passage, yn has he
no exclusive right fo the publication of the fact. So has it ever
been. For thous.inds of years men like these — working men,
abroad and at home — have been engaged in the collection of
facts ; and tlius there has been accumulated a vast body of them,
all of which have become common property, while even the
names of most of the men by whom they w'ere collected have
passed away. Next to these come the men who have been
engaged in the arrangement of facts and in their comparison,
with a view to deduce therefrom the laws by which the world is
governed, and which constitute science, Copernicus devoted his
life to the study of numerous facts, by aid of which he was at
length enabled to give to the world a knowledge of the great fact
that the earth revolved around the sun ; but he bad therein, from
the moment of its publication, no more property than had the
mo'.t violent of his opponents. The discovery of other laws
occupied the life of Kepler, but he had no property in them.
Newton spent many years of his life in the composition of his
" Principta," yet in that he had no copyright, except for the mere
clothing in which his ideas were placed before the world. The
body was common property. So, too, with Eacon and Locke,
Leibnitz and Descartes. Franklin, Priestley, and Davy, Quesnay,
Turgot, and Adam Smith, Lamarck and Cuvier, and all other men
who have aided in carrying science to the point at which it has
now arrived. Tliey have had no propeity in their ideas. If they
labored, it was because they had a thirst for knowledge. They
could expect no pecuniary reward, nor had they nmch reason even
to hope for fame. New ideas were, necessarily, a subject of con-
troversy ; and cases are, even in our time, not imcounnon, in
which the announcement of an idea at variance with those com-
monly recorded has tended greatly to the diminution of tbe enjoy-
ment of life by the man by whom it has been announced. The
contemporaries of Harvey could scarcely be made to believe in
the circulation of the blood. Mr. Owen might have lived happily
in the enjoyment of a large fortune had he not conceived new
views of society. These he gave to the world in the form of a
book, that led him into controversy which has almost lasted out
his life, while the effort to carry his ideas into effect has cost him
his fortune. Admit that he bad been right, and that the correct-
ness of his views were now fully established, he would have In
..byGoogIc
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 23
them no propei-ty whatever ; nor would his boohs he now jiekling
him a shilling, because later writers would be placing them be-
fore the world in other and more attractive clothing. So ia it
with the books of all the men I have named. The copyright of
the " Principia " would be worth nothing, as would be the case with
all that Franlilin wrote on electricity, or Davy on chemistry. Few
now read Adam Smith, and still fewer Bacon, Leibnitz, or Des-
cartes. Examine where we may, we shall find that the collectors
of the facts and the producere of the ideas which constitute the
body of books, have received little or no reward while thus
engaged in contributing so lai^ely to the augmentation of the com-
mon property of mankind.
For what, then, is copyright given ? For the clothing in which
the body is produced to the world. Examine Mr. Macaulay's
" History of England " and you will find that the body is composed
of what is coannon property. Not only have the facts been re-
corded by others, but the ideas, too, are derived from the works of
men who have labored for the world without receiving, and fre-
quently without the expectation of receiving, any pecuniary com-
pensation for their labors. Mr. Macanlay has read much and
carefully, and he has thus been enabled to acquire great skill in
arranging and clothing his facts ; but the reader of his books will
iind in them no contribution to positive knowledge. The works
of men who make contributions of that kind are necessarily con-
troversial and distasteful to the reader ; for which reason they find
few readers, and never pay their authors. Turn now to our own
authors, Prescott and Bancrofi:, who have furnished us with histor-
ical works of so great excellence, and you will find a sta,te of
things precisely similar. They have taken a large quantity of
materials out of the common stock, in which you, and I, and all
of us have an interest ; and those materials they have so reelothed
as to render them attractive of purchasers ; but this is all they
have done. Look to Mr. Webster's works, and you will find it
the same. He was a great reader. He studied the Constitution
carefully, with a view to understand what were the views of its au-
thors, and those views he reproduced in different and more attract-
ive clothing, and there his work ended. He never pretended, as
I think, to furnish the world with any new ideas ; and if he had
done so, he could have claimed no property in them. Few now
read the heavy volumes containing the speeches of Fox and Pitt.
..byGoogIc
24 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT,
They did nothing but reproduce ideas that were common property,
and in siich clothing as answered the purposes of the moment.
Sir Robert Peel did tbe same. The world would now be just as
wise had he never lived, for he made no contribution to the gen-
eral stock of knowledge. The great work of Chancellor Kent is,
to use the words of Judge Story, " but a new combination and
arrangement of nld materials, in which the s,kill and judgment of
the author in the selection and exposition, and accurate use of
those materials, constitute the basis of his reputation, as nell as
of his copyright." The world at large h the owner of all the
facts that have been collected, and of all tlie ideas that haie been
deduced from them, and its right in them is precisely the same
that the planter has in the bale of cotton that has been raised on
his plantation ; and the course of proceeding of both has, thus
far, been precisely similar ; whence I am induced to infer that, in
both cases, right has been done. Wlien the planter hands his
cotton to the spinner and the weaver, he does not say, " Take this
and convert it into cloth, and keep the cloth ; " but he does say,
" Spin and weave this cotton, and for so doing you shall have such
interest in the cloth as will give you a fair compensation for your
labor and skill, but, when that shall have been paid, t/ie cloth wiU
be mine." This latter is precisely what society, the owner of facts
and ideas, says to the author : " Take these raw materials that
have been collected, put them together, and clothe them after your
own fashion, and for a given time we will agree that nobody else
shall present them in the same dress. During that time you may
exhibit them for your own profit, but at the end of that period the
clothing will become common property, as the body now is. It is
to the contributions of your predecessors to our common stock
that you are indebted for the power to make your book, and we
require you, in your turn, to contribute towards the augmentation
of the stock that is to be used by your successors." This is jus-
tice, and to grant more than this would be injustice.
Let us turn now, for a moment, to the producers of works of
fiction Sir Walter Scott had carefully studied Scottish and
Border history, and thus had filled his mind with facts preserved,
and ideas produced, by others, which he reproduced in a different
form. He made no contribution to knowledge. So, too, with our
own very successfirt Washington Irving. He drew largely upon
the common stock of ideas, and dressed them up in a new, and
..byGoogIc
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 25
what has proved to be a moSt attractive form. Ro, again, with
Mr. Dickens. Read his " Bleak House" and you will find that he
has been a most careful observer of men and things, and has there-
by been enabled to collect a great number of facts that he has
dressed up in different forms, but that is all he has done. He is
irk the condition of a man who had entered a large garden and
collected a variety of the most beautiful flowers growing therein,
of which he had made a fine bouquet The owner of the garden
would n tu ally say to him : " The flowers are mine, but the
arran n nt is yours. You cannot keep the bouquet, but you may
nell t, show it for your own profit, for an hour or two, but
t! t t come to me. If you prefer it, I am willing to pay
you f y services, giving you a fair compensation for your time
ai d last This is exactly what society says to Mr. Dickens,
who makes such beautiful literary bouquets. What is right in the
individual, cannot be wrong in the mass of individuals of which
society is composed. Nevertheless, the author objects to this, in-
sisting that be is owner of the bouquet itself, although he has paid
no wages to the man who raised the flowers. Were he asked to
do so, he would, as I shall show in another letter, regard it as lead-
ing to great injustice.
LETTER II.
Let us suppose, now, that you should move, in the Senate, a
resolution looking to the establishment of the exclusive right of
making known the facts, or ideas, that might be brought to light,
and see what would be the effect. You would, as I think, flnd
yourself at once surrounded by the gentlemen who dress up those
facts and ideas, and issue them in the form of books. The geog-
rapher would say to you : " My dear sir, this will never do. Look
at my book, and you will see that it is drawn altogether from the
works of others, many of whom have sunk their fortunes, while
others have lost their lives, in pursuit of the knowledge that I
so cheaply give the world. You will find there the essence of
the works of Humboldt, and of Wilkes. All of Franklin's dis-
coveries are there, and I am now wmting only for the appear-
ance of McClure's voyage in the Arctic regions to give a new
edition of my book. Reflect, I beseech you, upon what you are
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26 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
about to do. Very few persons have leisure to read, or means
to pay for the books of these travellers, A few hundred copies
are sufficient to satisfy the demand, and then their worlis die out.
Of mine, on the contrary, the sale is ten, fifteen, or twenty thou-
sand annually, and thus is knowledge disseminated thronghout the
world, enabling the men who furnish me with facts to reap a
Tteh harvest of never dying fame. Grant them a copyright to the
new ideas they may supply to the world, and at once you put a
stop to the production of such books as mine, to my great injury
and to the loss of mankind at lai^e. Facts and ideas are conmion
property, and their owners, the public, have a right to use them as
they will."
The historian would say : " Mr. Senator, if you persist in this
course, you will never again see histories like mine. Here are
hundreds of people scattered over the country, industriously en-
gaged in disinterring facts relating to our early history. They are
enthusiasts, and many of them are very poor. Some of them con-
trive to publish, in the form of books, the results of their re-
searches, while others give them to the newspapers, or to the
historical societies, and thus they are enabled to come before tlie
world. Few people buy such things, and it not unfrequently
happens that men who have spent their lives in the coUection of
important facts, waste much of their small means in giving them
to an ungrateful nation. Nevertheless, they have their reward
in the consciousness that they are thus enabling others to fur-
nish the world with accurate histories of their country. I find
them of infinite use. They are my hewers of wood and drawers
of water, and they never look for payment for their labor. De-
prive me of their services, and I shall be obliged to abandon the
production of books, and return to the labors of my profession —
and they will be deprived of fame, while the public will be de-
prived of knowledge."
The medical writer would say : " Mr. Senator, should you suc-
ceed in carrying out the idea with which you have commenced,
you will, I fear, be the cause of great injury to our profession, and
probably of great loss of life, for you will thereby arrest the dis-
semination of knowledge. We have, here and abroad, thousands
of industrious and thoughtful men, more intent upon doing good
than upon pecuniary profit, who give themselves to_ the study of
particiilar diseases, furnishing the results to our journals, and not
..byGoogIc
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGltT. 27
unfrequenili publishing mono^iaphs of the highest value. The
salt of tlicbe IS alnajs MnaH ind their publicution not uufre-
quentlj makes heavy dnfta on the small means of their authors.
Such men are of infiinte use to me, for it is by aid of their most
^TJuable labors that I haie found myself enabled to prepare the
numerous tnd popuUr works that I have given to the world.
Look at them There are seierit volumes of each, of which I sell
thousards annnillj to my greit profit Deprive nie of the power
to avail myself of the brmis ot the working men ot the piolcssion
and my books will soon cei^e to be of anj \ iliie and I s] ill lose
the targe income now realized from th(.ni wlide the public will
suffer in their healtli by reason of the increased difficulty of dis
seminating informaticn
The professor would isk vou to look at hm lecti res an 1 sat sfv
yourself that they contained no single idei that hil criminated
with himself. How he would ask could these \ duable lee
tures have been piodiiced, had I been depri\ed of the power to
avail myself of the facts collected by the working-men, and the
principles deduced from them by the thinkers of the world ? I have
no leisure to collect facts or analyze them. For many years past,
these lectures have yielded me a large income, and so will they
continue to do, provided I be allowed to do in fiLttire as in time
past I have done, appropriate to my own use all the new facts and
new ideas I meet with, crediting their authors or not as I find it
best to suit my purpose. Abandon your idea, my dear sir ; it can-
not be carried out. The men who work, and the men who think,
must content themselves with fame, and be thankful if the men
who write books and deliver lectures do not appropriate to them-
selves the entire credit of the facts they use, and the ideas they
borrow."
The teacher of natural science would say ; " Uly friend, have
you reflected on what you are about to do ? Look at our collec-
tions, and see how they have been enlarged within the last half
century, Asia and Africa, and the islands of the Southern Ocean,
have been traversed by indefatigable men who, at the bayard of
life, and often at the cost of fortune, have quadrupled our knowl-
edge of vegetable and animal life. Such men do not ask for com-
pensation of any kind. They arc willing to work for nothing.
Why, then, not let them ? Look at the vast contributions to geo-
logical knowledge that have been made throughout the Union by
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28 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
men who were content witli a bare support, and glad to have the
results of their labors published, as they have been, at the public
cost. Such men ask no copyright. WLen they publish, it is al-
most always at a loss. Wilson lived and died poor. So did
Audubon, to whose labors we are indebted for so much ornitliolog-
ical knowledge, ilorton expended a large sum in the preparation
and publication of his work on crania. Agassiz did the same with
Lis great work on fishes. Cuvier had nothing but fame to be-
queath to his fiimily. Lamarck's great work on the inverlebrattE
sold so slowly that very many years elapsed before the edition was
exhausted ; but he would have found his reward had he lived to
see his ideas appropriated without acknowledgment, and re-
clothed by the aiilhor of ' Vestiges of Creation,' of which the sale
has been so large. This, my friend, is the use for which such men
as Lamarck and Cuvier were intended. They collect and classify
the facts, and we popidarize them to our own profit Look at my
works and see, bulky as they are, how many editions have been
printed, and think how profitable they must have been to the pub-
lisher and myself. Look further, and see how numerous are the
books to which my labors have indirectly given birth. See the
many school-hooks n el t on to botany and other departments of
natural science, tl e a tho s of which know little of what they un-
dertake to teach, e ept wl at tl ey have drawn from me and others
tike myself Aga n see how numerous are the ' Flora's Em-
blems,' and the ' C arland of Flowers,' and the ' Flora's Diction-
aries,' and how lar e s the r sale — and how large nnist be the
profits of those e „ige 1 the r production. To recognize in
such nien as Cu er a d La a ck the existence of any right to
either their facts or their deductions would be an act of great in-
justice towards the race of literary men, while most inexpedient
as regards the world at large, now so cheaply supplied with knowl-
edge. As regards the question of international copyright now
before the Senate, my views are different Several of my books
have been published abroad, and my publisher here tells me, that
to prevent the republication of others he is obliged to supply them
cheaply for foreign markets, and thus am I deprived of a fair and
just reward for my labors. Copyright should be universal and
eternal, and such, I am persuaded, will be the result at which you
will arrive when you shall have thorougiily studied the subject"
Having studied it, arid having given full consideration to the
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. ZV
views that they and others had presented, your answer would
probably be to the following effect; " It is clear, gentlemen, from
your own sliowing, that there are two distinct classes of persons
engaged in the production of books — the men who furnish the
body, and those who dress it up for production before the world.
The first class are generally poor, and likely to continue so. They
labor without any view to pecuniary advantage. They are, too,
very generally helpless. Animated to their work solely bj a de-
sire to penetrate into the secrets of nature the character of their
minds unfits them for mif ing in a money-getting world, while you
are always in that world, ready to enforce your claims to its con-
sideration. As a consequence of this, they are rarely allowed
even the credit tJiat is due to them. Their discoveries become at
once common property, to be used by men like youi selves, and for
your own individual profit. We have here among ourselves a
gentleman who has given to astronomy a new and highly impor-
tant law essential to the perfection of the science, the discovery of
which has cost him the labor of a life, as a consequence of which he
is poor and likely so to remain. Important as was his discovery,
his name is already so completely forgotten that there is probably
not a single one among you that can now recall it, and yet his law
figures in all the recent books. Is this right? Has he no claim
to consideration ?
" In answer, j ou will say, that ' to admit the existence of any
such nghts is not only impossible, hut inexpedient, even were it
possible. Knowledge advances by slow and almost imperceptible
steps, and each is but the precursor of a new and more important
one- Were each discoverer of a new truth tn be authorized to
monopolize the teaching of it millions of men. to whom, by our
^d. it is communicated, would remain in ignorance of it, and thus
would farther advance be prevented. In all times past, such
truths have been regarded as common property ; and so,' you will
add. ' they must continue to be regarded. Keiy upon it, the best
interests of society require that such shall continue to be the case,
however great the apparent injustice to the discoverer.'
" Here, you will observe, jou waive allt^ether the question of
right which you so strongly enforce in regard to yourselves. It
may be that you have reason ; but if so, how do you yourselves
stand in your relations with the great mass of human beings whose
right to tliis common property is equal with your own ?. For thouT
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30 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
sands of jears working men, collectors of facts and philosophers,
have been contributing to the comnaoh stock, and the treasure
accumulated is now enormously great ; and yet the mass of man-
kind remain still ignorant, and are poor, depraved, and wretched,
because ignorant. Under such circumstances, justice would seem
to require of the legislator that he should sanction no measure
tending to throw unnecessary difficulty in the way of the dissemi-
nation of knowledge. To do so, would be to deprive the many of
the power to profit by their interest in the common property. To
do so, would be to deprive the men who have contributed to the
accumulation of this treasure of even the reward to which, as you
admit, they justly may make a claim. If they are to be satisfied
with fame, we must do nothing tending to limit the dissemination
of their ideas, because to do so would be to limit their power to
acquire fame. If they are to be satisfied with the idea of doing
good to their fellow-men, we must avoid every thing tending to
limit the knowledge of their discoveries, because to do so would
be to deprive them of much of their small reward. Tlie state of
the matter is, as I conceive, as follows : On one side of you stand
the contributors to the vast treasure of knowledge that mankind
has accumulated, and is accumulating — men who have, in gen-
eral, labored without fee or reward ; on the other side of you
stand the owners of this vast treasure, desirous to have it fashioned
in a manner to suit their various tastes and powers, that all may
be enabled to profit by its possession. Between them stand your-
selves, middlemen between the producers and the consumers. It
is your province to combine the facts and ideas, as does the manu-
facturer when he takes the raw materials of cloth, and, by the aid
of the skill of numerous working men, past and present, elaborates
them into the beautiful forms that so much gratify our eyes in
passing through the Crystal Palace. For this service you are to
be paid ; but to enable you to receive payment you need the aid
of the legislator, as the common law grants no more copyright for
the form in which ideas are expressed than for the ideas them-
selves. In granting this aid he is required to see that, while he
secures that you have justice, he does no injustice to the men who
produce the raw material of your books, nor to the community
whose common property it is. In granting it, he is bound to use
his efforts to attain the knowledge needed for enabling him to do
jusdce to all parties, and not to you alone. The laws which else-
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 31
where govern the distribution of the proceeds of labor, milfft apply
in your case with equal force. Looking at them, we see that, with
the growth of population and of wealth, there is everywhere a
tendency to diminution in the proportion of the product that is
allowed to the men who stand between the producer and the con-
sumer. In new settlements, trade is small and the shopkeeper
requires lai^e profits to enable him to live ; and, while the con-
sumer pays a high price, the producer is compelled to be content
with a low one. In new settlements, the miller takes a large toll
for the conversion of corn into flour, and the spinner and weaver
take a large portion of the wool as their reward for converting the
balance into cloth. Nevertheless, the shopkeeper, the miller, the
spinner, and the weaver are poor, because trade is small. As
wealth and population grow, we find the shopkeeper gradually re-
ducing his charge, until from fifty it falls to five per cent. ; the
miller reducing his, until he finds that he can afford to give all
the flour that is yielded by the com, retaining for himself the
bran alone ; and the spinner and weaver contenting himself with a
constantly diminishing proportion of the wool ; and now it is that
we flnd shopkeepers, millers, and manufacturers grow rich, while
consumers are cheaply supplied because of the vast increase of
trade. In your case, however, the course of proceeding has been
altogether different. Half a century since, when our people were
but four millions in number, and were poor and scattered, gentle-
men like you were secured in the monopoly of their works for
fourteen years, with a power of renewal for a similar term. Twenty
years since, when the population had almost tripled, and their
wealth had sixfold increased, and when the facilities of distribution
had vastly grown, the term was fixed at twenty-eight years, with
renewal to widow or children for fourteen years more. At the
present moment, you are secured in a monopoly for forty-two
years, among a population of twenty-six millions of people, certain,
at the close of twenty years more, to be fifty millions and likely,
at the close of another half century, to be a hundred millions, and
with facilities, for the disposal of your products, growing at a rate
unequaled in the world. With this vast increase of market, and
increase of power over that market, the consumer should be sup-
plied more cheaply than in former times ; yet such is not the case.
The novels of Mrs. Eowson and Charles B. Brown, and the his-
torical works of Dr. Ramsay, persons who then stood in the first
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32 INTEKNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
raTik of authors, sold as cheaply as do now the works of Fanny
Fern, the ' Reveries ' of Ik Marvel, or the history of Sir. Bancroft ;
and yet, in the period that has since elapsed, the cost of publica-
tion has fallen probably twenty-five per cent. We have here an
inversion of the usual order of things, and it is with these facts
before us that you claim to have your monopoly extended over an-
other thirty millions of people ; in consideration of which, our
people are to grant to the authors of foreign countries a monopoly
of the privilege of supplying them with books produced abroad.
This application strikes me as unwise. It tends to produce in-
quiry, and that will, probably, in its turn, lead rather to a reduc-
tion than an extension of your privileges Can tie suppose 1
that when, but a few years hence, our pop Ut on 1 11 ha e at
tained a height of fifty millions, with a deman 1 for books prob bly
ten times greater than at present, the comn ty w 11 I 11 ncr to
continue to you a monopoly, during forty-t o year of tl e ^ht
of presenting a body that is common proj e ty as c i ens t on
for putting it in a new suit of clothing ? I do bt t u I nd
would advise you, for your own good, to be c tent w tl nh t o
have, ^sop tells us that the dog lost his p ece of n eat n tl e
attempt to seize a shadow, and such may prove to be the case on
this occasion. So, too, may it be with the owners of patents.
The discoverers of principles receive nothing, biit those who apply
them enjoy a monopoly created by law for their use. Everybody
uses chloroform, but nobody pays its discoverer. The man who
taught us how to convert India rubber into clothing has not been
allowed even fame, while our courts are incessantly occupied with
the men who make the clothing. Patentees and producers of
books are incessantly pressing iipon Congress with claims for en-
lai^ement of tlieir privileges, and are thus producing the effect of
inducing an inquiry into the validity of their claim to what they
now enjoy. Be content, my friends ; do not risk the loss of a part
of what you have n the effort to ol ta n n ore
The question is often isked Why should a n an n t have the
same claim to the [ erpetual enjoym t of 1 s book tl at h s neigh-
bor has in regard to the 1 o se 1 e ! as bu It The er s, that
the rights of the i art es a e ent el 1 ffere t Tl e an who
builds a Kouse q rnes the st ne ajid n kes the br ks of which
it is composed, or he pays another for do ng t f r 1 When
finished, his house & all, atenals and work a sh p his own.
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 33
The man who makes a book uses the common property of man-
kind, and all he furnishes is the workmanship. Society permits
him to use its property, but it is on condition that, after a certain
time, the whole shall become part of the common stock. To
find a parallel case, let it be supposed that liberal men should, out
of their earnings, place at the disposal of the people of your town
stone, bricks, and lumber, in quantity sufficient to find accommo-
dation for hundreds of people that were unable to provide for
themselves; next suppose that in this state of things jour author-
ities should say to any man or men, " Take these materials, and
procure lime in quantity sufficient to build a house ; employ car-
peters, bricklayers, and architects, and then, in consideration of
having found the lime and the workmanship, you shall have a
■ right to charge your own price to every person who may, for all
times, desire to occupy a room in it " ; would this be doing justice
to the men who had given the raw materials for public use?
"Would it be doing justice to the community by which they had
been given ? Would it not, on the contrary, be the height of in-
justice? Unquestionably it would, and it would raise a storm
that would speedily displace the men who had thus abused their
trust. Their successors would then say ; " Messrs. — — , our pre-
decessors, did what they had no right to do. These materials are
common property. They were given without fee or reward, with
a view to benefit the whole people of our town, many of whom are
badly accommodated, while others are heavily taxed for helping
those who are unable to help themselves. To carry out the views
of the benevolent men to whom we are indebted for all these stone,
bricks, and lumber, they must remain common property. You
may, if you will, convert them into a house, and, in consideration
of the labor and skill required for so doing, we will grant you,
during a certain time, the privilege of letting the rooms, at your
own price, to those who desire to occupy them ; but at the close
of that time the building must become common property, to be
disposed of as we please." Tliis is exactly what the community
says to the gentlemen who employ themselves in converting its
common property into books, and to say more would be doing
great injustice.
The length of time for which the building should be thus
granted would depend upon the number of persons that would be
likely to use the rooms, and the prices they would be willing to
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34 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
pay. If lodgers were likely to be few and poor, a long time ivould
be required to be given ; but if, on the contrary, the comnmnity
were so great and prosperous as to render it certain that all the
rooms would be occupied every day in the year, and at such prices
as would speedily repay the labor and skill that had been required,
the time allowed would be short. Here, as we see, the course of
things would be entirely different from that which is observed in
regard to books, the monopoly of which has increased in length
with the growth, in wealth and number, of the consumere, and is
now attempted, by the aid of international copyright, to be ex-
tended over millions of men who are yet exempt from its opera-
tion.
The people of this country own a vast quantity of wild land,
which by slow degrees acquires a money value, that value being
due to the contributions of thousands and tens of tliousands of
people who are constantly making roads towards them, and thus
facilitating the exchange of such commodities as may be raised
from them. These lands arc common property, but the whole
body of their owners has agreed that whenever any one of their
number desires to purchase out the interest of his partners he
may do so at $1.25 per acre. They do not give bim any of the
common property ; they require him to purchase and pay for it
With authors they pursue a more liberal course. They say :
" We have extensive fields in which hundreds of thousands of men
have labored for many centuries. They were at first wild lands,
as wild as those of the neighborhood of the Eocky Mountains, but
this vast body of laborers has felled the trees and drained the
swamps, and has thus removed nearly all the difficulties that stood
opposed to profitable cultivation. They have also opened mines
of incalculable richness ; mines of gold, silver, lead, copper, iron,
and other metals, and all of these are common property. The
men who executed these important works were our slaves, ill fed,
worse clothed, and still worse lodged ; and thousands of the most
laborious and useful of them have perished of disease and starva-
tion. Great as are the improvements already made, their number
is constantly increasing, for we continue to employ such slaves —
active, intelligent, and useful men ^ in extending them, and
scarcely a day elapses that does not bring to light some new dis-
covery, tending greatly to increase the value of our common prop-
erty. We invite you, gentlemen, to come and cultivate these lands
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 35
and work these mines. They are free to all. During the loDg
period of forty-two years you shall have the whole product of your
labor, and all we shall ask of you, at the close of that period, will
be that you leave behind the common property of which we are
now possessed, increased by the addition of such machinery as
you may yourselves have made. The corn that you may have ex-
tracted, and the gold and silver tliat you may have mined during
that long period, will be the property of yourselves, your wives,
and your children. We charge no rent for the use of the lands,
no wages for the labor of our slaves," Not satisfied with this,
however, the persons who work these rich fields and mines claim
to be absolute owners, not only of all the gold and silver they ex-
tract, but of all the machinery they construct out of the common
property ; and out of this claim grows the treaty now before the
Senate.
If justice requires the admission of foreigners to the enjoyment
of a monopoly of the sale of their books it should be conceded at
once to all, and it should he declared that no book should he
printed here without the consent of its author, let him be English-
man, Frenchman, Gerniau, Russian, or Hindoo. This would cer-
tainly greatly increase the difiiculty now existing in relation to the
dissemination of knowledge ; but if justice does require it let it be
done. Would it, however, benefit the men who have real claims
on our consideration ? Let us see. A German devotes his life to
the study of the history of his country, and at length produces a
work of great value, but of proportional size. Real justice says
that his work may not be used without his permission ; that the
facts he has brought to light from among the vast masses of orig-
inal documents he has examined are his property, and can be pub-
lished by none others but himself. The legislation, whose aid is
invoked in the name of justice by literary men, speaks, however,
very differently. It says : " This work is very cumbrous. To
establish his views this man has gone into great detail. If trans-
lated, his book will scarcely sell to such extent as to pay the labor.
The facts are common property. Out of this book you can make
one that will be much more readable, and that will sell, for it will
not be of more than one third the size. Take it, then, and extract
all you need, and you will do well. You will have, too, another
advantage. Translation confers no reputation ; but an original
work, such as I now recommend to you, will give you such a stand-
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36 INTERNATIONAL COPYEIGHT.
ing as may lead you on to fortune. Few people know any thing
of the original woric, and it will not be necessary for you to men-
tion that all your materials are thence derived." On the other
hand, a lady who has read the work of this poor German finds in
it an episode that she expands into a novel, which sells rapidly,
and she reaps at home a large reward for her labors ; while the
man who gave her the idea starves in a garret. A literary friend
of the lady novelist, delighted with her success, finds in his coun-
trywoman's treasury of facts the material for a poem out of which
he, too, reaps a harvest. Both of these are protected hy interna-
tional copyright, because ihey have furnished nothing but the clothing
of ideas ; but the man who supplied them with the ideas finds
that his book is condensed abroad, and given to the public, per-
haps, without even the mention of his name.
The whole tendency of the existing system is to give the largest
reward to those whose labors are lightest, and the smallest to those
whose labors are most severe ; and every extension of it must
necessarily look in that direction. The " Mysteries of Paris " were
a fortune to Eugene Sue, and " Uncle Tom's Cabin " has been one
to Mrs, Stowe. Byron had 2,000 guineas for a volume of " Childe
Harold," and Moore 3,000 for his " Lalla Eookh; " and yet a single
year should have more than sufficed for the production of any one
of them. Under a system of international copyright, Dumas,
already so largely paid, would be protected, whereas Thierry, who
sacrificed his sight to the gratification of his thirst for knowledge,
would not. Humboldt, the philosopher par excellence of the ^e,
would not, because he furnishes his readers with things, and not
with words alone. Of the books that record his observations on
this continent, but a part has, I believe, been translated into Eng-
lish, and of these hut a small portion has been republished in this
country, although to be had without claim for copyright. In
England their sale has been small, and can have done little more
than pay the cost of translation and publication. Had it been re-
quired to pay for' the privilege of translation, but a small part of
even those which have been republished would probably have ever
seen the light in any but the language of the author. This great
man inherited a handsome property which he devoted to the ad-
vancement of science, and what has been his pecuniary reward
may be seen in the following statement, derived from an address
recently delivered in New York : —
,cb,Googlc
INTERNATIONAL COPTHIGHT. 37
" There are now living in Europe two very distinguished men, barons, boih very
eminent in their line, both Ifnown to the whole civiliied world; one is Baron Roths-
child, and the other Baron Humboldt; one distinguished for the accumulation of
wealth, the other for the accumulation of knowiedge. What are the possessions of
(he philosopher? Why, sir, I heard a gentlemau whom I have seen hero this ailer-
noon, say that, on a recent visit to Europe, he paid hia respects to that dieynguished
philosopher, and was admittod to an andience. He found him, at the age of U
vears, fresh and rigorous, in a small room, nicely sanded, with a large deal table
uncovered in the midst of that room, containing his books and writing apparatus.
Adjoining this, was asmall iMd-room, m which he slept. Here this eminent philoso-
pher received a visitor from the United Slat«s. Heconveraed with him; he epoke
of his works. " My works," said he, " you will find in the adjoining library, but I
am too poor (o own a copy of them. 1 have not the means to buy a full copy of my
After having furnished to the gentlemen who produce books
more of the material of which books are composed than has ever
been furnished by any other man, this illustrious man finds him-
self, at the close of life, altogether dependent on the bounty of the
Prussian government, which allows him, as I have heard, less than
five hundred dollars a year. In what manner, now, would Hum-
boldt be benefited' by international copyright ? I know of none ;
but it is very pMn to see that Dumas, Victor Hugo, and George
Sand, might derive from it immense revenues. In confirmation of
this view, I here ask you to review the names of the persons who
urge most anxiously the change of system that is now proposed,
and see if you can find in it the name of a single man who has
done any thing to extend the domain of knowledge. I think you
will not. Next look and see if you do not find in it the names of
those who furnish the world with new forms of old ideas, and are
largely paid for so doing- The most active advocate of interna-
tional copyright is Mr. Dickens, who is said to realize 170,000
per annum from the sale of works whose composition is little more
than amusement for his leisure hours. In this country, the only
attempt that has yet been made to restrict the right of translation
is in a suit now before the courts, for compensation for the privi-
lege of converting into German a work that has yielded the largest
compensation that the world has yet known for the same quantity
of literary labor.
We are constantly told that regard to the interests of science
requires that we should protect and enlarge the rights of authors ;
but does science make any such claim for herself ? I doubt it
Men who make additions to science know well that they have, and
can have, no rights whatever. Cuvier died very poor, and all the
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38 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
copyright that could hare been given to him or Humboldt would
not have enriched either the one or the other. Laplace knew
well that his great work could yield him nothing. Our own
Bowditch translated it as a labor of love, and left by his will the
means required for its publication. The gentlemen who advo-
cate the interests of science are literary men who use the facts
and ideas furnished by scientific men, paying nothing for their
use. Now, literature is a most honorable profession, and the gen-
tlemen engt^ed in it are entitled not only to the respect and con-
sideration of their fellow-men, but also to the protection of the
law ; but in granting it, the legislator is bound to recollect, that
justice to the men who fumLsh the raw materials of books,
and justice to the community that owns those raw materials, re-
quire that protection shali not, either in point of space or time, be
greater than is required for giving the producer of books a full
and fair compensation for his labor. How the present system
operates in regard to English and American authors, I propose to
consider in another letter.
LETTER III.
"We are assured that justice requires the admission of foreign
authors to the privilege of copyright, and in support of the claim
that she presents are frequently informed of the extreme poverty
of many highly popular English writers. Mrs. Inchbald, so well
known as author of the " Simple Story " and other novels, as well
as in her capacity of editor, dragged on, as we are told, to the age
of sixty, a miserable existence, living always in mean lodgings,
and suffering frequently from want of the common comforts of life.
Lady Moi^n, so well known as Miss Owenson, a brilliant and
accomplished woman, is now to some extent dependent upon the
public charity, administered in the form of a pension of less than
five hundred dollars a year. Mrs. Hemans, the universally ad-
mired poetess, lived and died in poverty. Laman Blanchard lost
his senses and committed suicide in consequence of being com-
pelled, by his extreme poverty, to the effort of writing an article
for a periodical while his wife lay a corpse in the house. Miss
Mitford, so well known to all of us, found herself, afler a life of
close economy, so greatly reduced as to have been under the neces-
..byGooglc
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 39
sity of applying to her American readers for means to extricate
her little property from the rude hands of the sheriff. Like Lady
Morgan, she is now a public pensioner. Leigh Hunt is likewise
dependent on the public charity, Tom Hood, so i^ell known by
his " Song of a Shirt " — the delight of his readers, -uid a mine of
wealth to his publishers; a man without vices, and of untinng
industry — lived always from day to day on the produce of his
labor. On his death-bed, when his lungs were so worn with con-
sumption that he could breathe only through a silver tube, he was
obliged to be propped up with pillows, and, with snaking band and
dizzy head, force himself to the task of amusing bis readers, that
he might thereby obtain bread for his unhappy wife and children.
With all his reputation, Moore found it difficult to support his
family, and all the comfort of his declining years was due to the
charity of his friend. Lord Lansdowne. In one of his letters
from Germany, Campbell expresses himself transported with joy
at hearing that a double edition of his poems had just been pub-
lished in London. "This unexpected fifty pounds," says he,
" saves me from jail." Haynes Bayley died in extreme poverty.
Similar statements are furnished us in relation to numerous
others who have, by the nse of their pens, largely contributed to
the enjoyment and instruction of the people of Great Britain.
It would, indeed, be difficult to find very many cases in which it
had been otherwise with persons exclusively dependent on the
produce of literary labor. With few and brilliant esceptions,
their condition appears to have been, and to be, one of almost
hopeless poverty. Scarcely any thing short of this, indeed, would
induce the acceptance of the public charity that is occasionally
doled out in the form of pensions on the literary ftind.
Tills is certainly an extraordinary state of things, and one that
makes to our charitable feelings an appeal that is almost irresisti-
ble. Nevertheless, before giving way to such feelings, it would
be proper to examine into the real cause of all this poverty, with
a view to satisfy ourselves if real charity would carry us in the
direction now projwsed. The skilful physician always studies the
cause of disease before he determines on the remedy, and this
course is quite as necessary in prescribing for moral as for physi-
cal disorder. Fmling to do this, we might increase instead of
diminishing the evil, and might find at last that we Iind been tax-
ing ourselves in vain.
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40 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
What is claimed by English authors is perpetuity and universal-
ity of property in the clothing they supply for the body that is fur-
nished to the world by other and unpaid men ; and an examina-
tion of the course of proceeding in that country for the last cen-
tury and a half shows that each step that has been taken has been
in that direction. While denying to the producers of facts and
ideas any right whatsoever, every act of legislation has tended to
give more and more control over their dissemination to men
who appropriated them to their own use, and brought them in an
attractive form before the reader. Early in the last century was
passed an act well known as the Statute of Queen Anne, giving to
authors fourteen years as the period during which they were to
have a monopoly of the peculiar form of words they chose to adopt
in coming before the world. The number of persons then living
in England and Wales, and subjected to that monopoly, was about
five millions. Since that time the field of its operation has been
. enlarged, until it now embraces not only England and Wales, but
Scotland, Ireland, and the British colonies, containing probably
thirty-two millions of people who use the English language. The
time, too, has been gradually extended until it now reaches forty-
two years, or thrice the period for which it was originally granted.
Nevertheless, no life is more precarious than that of an English-
man dependent upon literary pursuits for support. Such men are
almost universally poor, and leading men among them, Tennyson
and Sir Francis Head for instance, gladly accept the public char-
ity, in the form of pensions for less than five hundred dollars a
year. This is not a consequence of limitation in the field of ac-
tion> for that Is six times gieater tlian it was when Gay netted
£1,600 from a single opera, and Pope received £6,000 for his "Ho-
mer ; " five times greater than when Fielding had £1,000 for his
" Amelia ; " and four times more than when Robertson had £4,500
for his " Charles V.," Gibbon £5,000 for the second part of his
history, and McPherson £1,200 for his " Ossian." > Since that time
money has become greatly more abundant and less valuable ; and
if we desired to compare the reward of these authors with those
of the present day, the former should be trebled in amount, which
would give Robertson more than sixty thousand dollars for a work
that is comprised in three 8vo. volumes of very moderate size. It
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INTERNATIONAL COPYEIGHT. 41
is not a consequence of limitation of lime, for that has grown from
fourteen to forty-two years — more tlian is required for any book
except, perhaps, one in five or ten thousand. It should not be a
consequence of poverty in the nation, for British writers assure
us that wealth so much abounds that wars are needed to prevent
its too rapid growth, and that foreign loans are indispensable for
enabling the people of Britain to find an outlet for all their vast
accumulations. What, then, is the cause of disease ? Why is it
that in so wealthy a nation literary men and women are so gen-
erally poor that it should be required to bring their poverty before
the world, to !ud in the demand for an extension to other coun-
tries of the monopoly so well secured at home ? In that country
the fortunes of wealthy men count by millions, and, that being
the case, an average contribution of a shilling a head towards
paying for the copyright of books, would seem to be the merest
trifle to be given in return for the pleasure and the instruction de-
rived from the perusal of the works of English authors, and yet
even that small sum does not appear to be paid. Thirty-two mil-
lions of shillings make almost eight millions of dollars ; a sum
sufficient to give to six hundred authors more than thirteen thou-
sand dollars a year, being more than half the salary of the chief
magistrate of onr Union. Admitting, however, tliat there were a
thousand authors worthy to be paid, and that would most certainly
cover them all, it would give to each eight thousand dollars, or
one third more than we have been accustomed to allow to men
who have devoted iheir lives to the service of the public, and have
at length risen .to be Secretaries of State. If English authors
were thus largely pmd, it would be deemed an absurdity to ask an
enlargement of their monopoly ; but, as they are not thus paid, it
is asked. There is probably but a single literary man in England
that receives $8,000 a year for his labors, and it may be doubted if
it would be possible to name ten whose annual receipts equal
$6,000 ; while those of a vast majority of them are under $1,500,
and very many of them greatly under it. Even were wo to in-
crease the nuniber of authors to fifteen hundred, one to every
4,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 in the kingdom, and
to allow them, on an average, $2,000 per annum, it would require
but three millions of dollars to pay them, and that could be done
by an average contribution of five pence per head of the popula-
tion, a wonderfully small amount to be paid for literary labor by a.
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42 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
nation claming to be the wealthiest in the world. A shilling a head
would give to the whole fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to
those of our Secretaries ; and yet we see clever and industrious
men, writers of eminence whose readers are to be found in every
part of the civilized world, living on in hopeless poverty, and dying
with the knowledge that they are leaving widows and children to
the " tender mercies " of a world in which they themselves have
shone and starved. Viewing all these facts. It may, I think, well
be doubted if the annual contributions of the people subject to the
British copyright act for the support of the persons who produce
their books, much exceeds three pence, or six cents, per head ; and
here it is that we are to find the real difficulty — one not to be
removed by us. The home market is the important one, whether
for words or things, and when that is bad but little benefit can
be derived from any foreign one ; and every effort to extend the
latter will, under such circumstances, be found to result in disap-
pointment- It can act only as a plaster to conceal the sore, while
the sore itself becomes lai^er and more dangerous from day to
day. To effect a cure, the sore itself must be examined and its
cause removed. To cure the disease so prevalent among British
authors we must first seek for the causes why the home market
for the products of their labor is so very small, and that will be
found in the steadily growing tendency towards centralization, so
obvious in every part of the operations of the British empire.
Centralization and civilization have in all countries, and at all pe-
riods of the world, been opposed to each other, and that such is
here the case can, I think, readily he shown.
Among the earliest cases in which this tendency was exhibited
was that of the Union by which the. kingdom of Scotland was re-
duced to the condition of a province of England, and Edinbut^h,
from being the capital of a nation, to becoming a mere provincial
town. By many and enlightened Scotchmen a federal union
would have been preferred ; but a legislative one was formed, and
from that date the whole public revenue of Scotland tended
towards London, towards which tended also, and necessarily, all
who sought for place, power, or distinction. An absentee govern-
ment produced, of course, absentee landholders, and with each
step in this direction there was a diminution in the demand at
home for talent, which thenceforward sought a market in the great
city to which the rents were sent The connection between the
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INTEILNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 43
educated classes of Scotland and the Scottish seats of learning
tended necessarily to decline, while the connection between the
former and the universities of England became more intimate.
These results were, of course, gradually produced, but, as is the
case with the stone as it falls towards the earth, the attraction of
centralization grew with the growth of the city that was buiJt out
of the contributions of distant provinces, while the counteracting
power of the latter as steadily declined, and the greater the de-
cline the more rapid does its progress now become. Seventy
years after the date of the Union, Edinburgh was still a great lit-
erary capital, and could then offer to the world the names of nu-
merous men of whose reputation any country of the world might
have' been proud : Burns and McPherson ; Robertson and Hume ;
Blair and Kames; Reid, Smith, and Stewart ; Monboddo, Playfiiir,
and Boswell ; and numerous others, whose reputation has survived
to the present day. Thirty-five years later, its press furnished the
world with the works of Jeffrey and Brougham ; Stewart, Brown,
and Chalmers ; Scott, "Wilson, and Joanna Baillie ; and with those of
many others whose reputation was iess widely spread, among whom
were Gait, Ho^, Lockhart, and Miss Ferrier, the authoress of
" Marriage." The " Edinburgh Review " and " Blackwood's Maga-
zine," then, to a great extent, represented Scottish men, and Scottish
modes of thought. Looking now on the same field of action, it is
difficult, from this distance, to discover more than two Scottish au-
thors, Alison and Sir William Hamilton, the latter all "the more
conspicuous and remarkable, as he now," says the " North British
Review " (Feb. 1863), " stands so nearly alone in the ebb of literary
activity in Scotiand, which has been so apparent during this gen-
eration." McCulloch and Macaulay were both, I believe, bom in
Scotland, but in ail else they are English. Glasgow has recently
presented the world with a new poet, in the person of Alexander
Smith, but, unlike Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish
about him beyond his place of birth. " It is not," says one of his
reviewers, " Scottish scenery, Scottish history, Scottish character,
and Scottish social humor, that he represents or depicts. Nor is
there," it continues, " any trace in him of that feeling of intense
nationality so common in Scottish writers. London," as it adds,
"a green lane in Kent, an English forest, an English manor-
house, these are the scenes where the real business of the drama
is transacted." '
1 North British Rfview, Aug. 1863.
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44 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
The "Edinbui^h Review" has become to all intents and pur-
poses an English journal, and "Blackwood " has lost all those char-
acteristics bj which it was in former times distinguished from the
m^azines published south of the Tweed.
Seeing these facts, we can scarcely fail to agree with the Review
already quoted, in the admission that there are " probably fewer
leading individual thinkers and literary guides in Scotland at
present than at any other period of its history since the early part
of the last century," since the day when Scotland itself lost its
individuality. The same journal informs us that " there is now
scarcely an instance of a Scotchman holding a learned position in
any other country," and farther says that " the small nmpber of
names of literary Scotchmen known throughout Europe for emi-
nence in literature and science is of itself sufficient to show to
how great an extent the present race of Scotchmen have lost the
position which their ancestors held in the world of letters." '
How, indeed, could it be otherwise ? Centralization tends to
carry to London ail the wealth and all the expenditure of the king-
dom, and thus to destroy everywhere the local deniand for books
or newspaper, or for men capable of producing either. Central-
ization taxes the poor people of the north of Scotland, and their
compWnts of distress are answered by an order for their expulsion,
that place may be made for sheep and shepherds, neither of whom
make much demand for books. Centralization approjiriates mil-
lions for the improvement of London and the creation of royal
palaces and pleasure-grounds in and about that city, while Holy-
rood, and all other of the buildings with which Scottish history is
connected, are allowed to go to ruin. Centralization gives libra-
ries and museums to London, but it refuses the smallest aid to the
science or literature of Scotland. Centralization deprives the
people of the power to educate themselves, by drawing from them
more than thirty millions of dollars, raised by taxation, and it
leaves the professors in the colleges of Scotland in the enjoyment
of chairs, the emoluments of many of which are but $1,200 per
annum. Whence, then, can come the demand for books, or the
power to compensate the people who make them ? Not, assured-
ly, from the mass of imhappy people who occupy the Highlands,
whose starving condition furnishes so frequent occasion for the
comments of their literary countrymen ; nor, as certainly, from
1 Norlh Bi-iUih Review, May, 1853.
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 45
the wretched inhabitants of the wynds of Glasgow, or from the
weavers of Paisley. Centralization is gradually separating the
people into two classes — the very rich, who live in London, and
the very poor, who remain in Scotland ; and with the progress of
this division there is a gradual decay in the feeling of national
pride, that formerly so much distinguished the people of Scotland.
The London " Leader " tells its readers that " England is a power
made up of conquests over nationalities ; " and it is right. The
nationality of Scotland has disappeared and, however much it
may annoy our Scottish friendd' to have the energetic and intelli-
gent Celt sunk in the slow and unimpressible " Saxon, such is
the tendency of English centnlization everywhere destructive of
that national feeling which is essential to progress in civilization.
Looking to Ireland, we find a similar state of things. Seventy
years since, that coimtry was able to insist upon and to establish
its clmm for an independent government, and, by aid of the mea-
sures then adopted, was rapidly advancing. From that period to
the close of the century the demand for books for Ireland was so
great as to warrant the republication of a large portion of those
produced in England. Tbe kingdom of Ireland of that day gave
to the world such men as Bui'ke and Grattan, Moore and Edge-
worth, Curran, Sheridan, and Wellington. Centralization, how-
ever, demanded that Ireland should become a province of Eng-
land, and from that time famines and pestilences have been of
frequent occurrence, and the whole population is now being ex-
pelled to make room for the "slow and unimpressible" Saxon
race. Under these circumstances, it is matter of small surprise
that Ireland not only produces no books, but that she furnishes no
market for those produced by others. Half a century of interna-
tional copyright has almost annihilated both the producers and
the consumers of books.
Passing towards England we may for a moment look to Wales,
and then, if we desire to find the effects of centralization and its
consequent absenteeism, in neglected schools, ignorant teachers,
decaying and decayed churches, and drunken clergymen with
immoral flocks, our object will be accomplished by studying the
pages of the " Edinburgh Review " " In such a state of things as
is there described there can be litUe tendency to the development
> See Blackimafi Magaat^, Sept. 1853, art. " Scolland since the Union."
a April, 1853, art. " The Church it. tha Monntaiiis,"
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
of intellect, and little of either ability or inclination to reward the
authors of books. In my next, I will look to England herself.
LETTER IV.
Arrived in Enaltni we find there everywhere the same tend
encj towards centrahzat on Of the 200 UOU small landed propri
etors of the days of 4dam Smith but few remain and of ei en those
the number is gr'iduall> dininishmg Great landed estates have
everywhere absentees for owners agents for managers and day
laborers for workmen The sm-ill landowner was a resident and
had a personal interest in the details if the neighborhood not
now felt by either the owner or the lab rer This stite f thmgs
existed to a considerable extent five-and-thirty years ago, but it
has since grown with great rapidity. At that time Great Briton
could exhibit to the world perhaps as large a body of men and
women of letters, with world-wide reputation, as ever before
existed in any country or nation, as will be seen from the follow-
ing list : —
Byron,
Wilson,
Clarkson,
Moore,
Hallam,
Landor,
Scott,
Roscoe,
Wellington,'
Wordsworth,
Malthus,
Robert Hall,
Rogers,
Ricardo,
Taylor,
Campbell,
Mill,
Romilly,
Joanna Baillie,
Chalmers,
Edge worth.
vSouthey,
Coleridge,
Hannah More,
Gifford,
Heber,
Dalton,
Jeffrey,
Be nth am,
Davy,
Sydney Smith,
Brown,
Wollaston,
Brougham,
Mackintosh,
The Herschels,
Horner,
Stewart,
Dr. Clarke.
DeQuincey was then just coming on the stage. Crabbe, Shel-
ley, Keats, Croly, Hazlitt, Lockhart, Lamb, Hunt, Gait, Lady
Morgan, Miss Mitford, Horace Smith, Hook, Milman, Miss Aus-
ten, and a host of others, were already on it. Many of these ap-
pear to have received rewards far greater than fall now to the lot
of some of the most distinguished literary men. Crabbe is said
' Wellington's dispatches place him in the Hrst rank of hietoriiiDS.
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 47
to have received 3,000 guineas, or $15,000, for his " Tales of
the Hall," and Theodore Hook 2,000 guineas for " Sayings and
Doings," and, if the facts were so, they prove that poets and novel-
ists WGre far more valued then than now. At that time, Croker,
Barrow, and numerous other men of literary reputation co-operated
with Southey and Gifford in providing for the pages of the " Quar-
terly." All these, men and women, were the product of the last
century, when the small landholders of England yet counted
hy hundreds of thousands.
Since then, centralization has made great progress. The land-
holders now amount, as we are informed, to only 30,000, and the
gulf which separates the great proprietor from the cultivator has
gradually widened, as the one has become more an absentee and
the other more a day laborer. The greater the tendency to-
wards the absorption of land by the wealthy banker and mer-
chant, or the wealthy cotton-spinner like Sir Robert Peel, the
greater is the tendency towards its abandonment by the small
proprietor, who has an interest in local self government, and the
greater the tendency towards the centralization of power in Lon-
don and in the great seats of manufacture. In all those places, it
is thought that the prosperity of England is dependent upon "a
cheap and abundant supply of labor." ' The " Times " assures its
readers that it is " to the cheap labor of Ireland that England is
indebted for all her great works ; " and that note is repeated by a
large portion of the literary men of England who now ask for pro-
tection in the American market against the effects of the system
they so generally advocate.
The more the people of Scotiand can be driven from the land
to take refuge in Glasgow and Paisley, the cheaper must be labor.
The more those of Ireland can be driven to England, the greater
must be the competition in the latter for employment, and the
lower must be the price of labor. The more the land of England
can be centralized, the greater must be the mass of people seeking
employment in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham,
and the cheaper must labor be.
Low-priced laborers cannot exercise self-government All they
earn is required for supplying themselves with indifferent food,
clothing, and lodging, and they cannot control the expenditure of
their wages to such extent as to enable them to educate their
1 North Britiili Eeviea, November, 1853.
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48 INTEKNATIONAL COPYKIGHT.
chlldreo, and hence it is that the condition of the people of Eng-
land is as here descnbed : —
"Abont one half of our poor can Heitberread nor write. The test of signing the
name at mairiage is a very imperfect absolute test of education, but it is a very good
relative one : taking that test, how stands Leeds itself in the Registrar- General' B
returns? In Leeds, which is the centre of the movement for letting education
remain aa it is, left entirely to chance and charity to supply ita dejiciencies, tiow do
we End the fact? This, that in 1846, the last year to which these returns are
brought down, of !,8S0 marriages celebrated in Leeds and Hunslet, 508 of the men
and 1,020 of the women, or conaiderahly more than one half of Ihe latter, signed
their names with marks. ' I have also a personal knowledge of thia fact — that of
17 men employed upon a railway in this immediate neighborhood, only 11 can sign
their names in the receipt of their wages; and thia not because of any diiSdence on
their part, but positively because they cannot write.' And only lately, the " Leeds
Mercury" itself gave a most striking instance of ignorance among persons from B<eo-
tian Pudseyi of 12 witnesses, ' all of reapectablo appearance, esamined before the
Mayor of Bradford at the court-house there, only one man could sign his name, and
that indifferently.' Mr. Neiaon has clearly shown, in statistiea of crime in England
dietricts where the fewest numbers in proportion to the population can read and
write. Is it not, indeed, beginning at the wrong end to try and reform men after
they have become criminals? Yet yun cannot begin with children, from want of
Bohools. Poverty is the result of ignorance, and then ignorance is again the unhappy
result of poverty. ' Ignorance makes men improvident and thoughtless — women
as well as men; it makes them hUnd to the future — to the future of thia life as well
as the life beyond. It makes them dead to higher pleasures than those of the mere
senses, and keeps tbsin down to the level of the mere animal. Hence the enormous
extent of drunkenness throughout this country, and the frightful waste of ineans
which it involves.' At Bilston, amidst 20,000 people, there are but two struggling
schools — one has lately ceased; at Millenhall, Darlaston, and Pelaall, Hmid a teem-
ing popnlalion, no school whatever. In Oldham, among 100.000, but one public
day-school for the Uboring classes; tbe others are an infant-school, and some dame
and factory schools. At Birmingham, there are Sl,8ai children at school, and 23,178
at no school} at Liverpool, 50,000 out of 90,000 at no school; at Leicester, 3,200 out
of 12,500; and at Leeds itself, in 1341 (the date of the latest returns), some 9,600
out of 16,400 were at no school whatever. It Is the same in the counties. ' 1 have
Norfolk,there being no adult male in the parish able to read and write.' For a pop-
ulation of 17,000,000 we have but twelve normal schools; while in Massachusetts
they have three such schools for only 800,000 of population."
Poverty and ignorance produce intemperance and crime, and
hence it is that both so much abound throughout England. In-
fanticide, as we are told, prevails to an extent unknown in any
other part of the world. Looking at all these facts, we can
readily see that the local demand for information throughout
England must be very small, and this enables us to account for
the extraordinary fact, that in all that country there has been no
daily newspaper printed out of London. There is, consequently,
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 49
no locil demand for literary talent The weekly papers tLat are
published I equire little ot the pen, but much of the Si-is-ion, The
necessarj conbequence of this is, that every young man who fan-
cies he can wiite muit _,o to London to seek a channel through
which he may be enabled to come before the public Here we
haie central izition ^ain Arnved m London, he finds a few
daily pipers, but onlj one, as we are told, that pays ith expenses,
and around each of them is a eorps of wnters and editois ab ill-
disposed to permit the introduction of any new Uborers, in their
field as aie the street beggars of London to permit any inter
ferencenith their ' beat' If he desires to become contributor to
the magazines, it is the same To obtain the pnvilege of con-
tributing his "cheip Ubor" to their pageb he must be well intro-
duced, and if he make the attempt without such introduction he
IS treatediwith a degree of insolence scarcely to be imigined by
any one not famihar with the "answers to correspondents ' in
London penodicals. If disposed to pnnt i book he fand-> a very
limited number of publishers, each one surrounded with his corps,
of authors and editors, and generallj provided nitli t journal in
which to have hi6> own books well placed before the world. If,
now, he succeeds in gaining la\orable notice, he finds that he can
obtmn but a very small proportion of the price of his book, even
if it sell, because centralization requires that all books shall be ad-
vertised in certain London journals that chaise their own prices,
and thus absorb the proceeds nf no inconsiderable portion of the
edition. Next, he fands the Chancellor of the Exchequer re-
quiring a share of the proceeds of the book for permiKsion to use
paper, and further permission to advertise his work when printed.^
Inquiring to what purpose are devoted the proceeds of all these
taxes, he learns that the centralization which it is the object
of the British cheap-labor policy to establish, requires the main-
tenance of large armies and large fleets which absorb more than
all the profits of the commerce they protect. The bookseller in-
forms him that he must take the risk of finding paper, and of
paying the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the " Times " and
numerous other journals ; that every editor will espect a copy ;
that the interests of science require that he, poor as he is, shall
give no less than eleven copies to the public ; and that the most
w been repealed, but that tax was a email
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50 nrt'ERNATTONAL COPYRIGHT.
that can be hoped for from the first edition is, that it will not
bring him in debt. His book appeavs, but the price is high,
for the reason that the taxes are heavy, and the general de-
mand for books is small. Cheap laborers cannot buy books ; sol-
diers and sailors cannot buy books ; and thus does centralization
diminish the market for literary talent while increasing the cost
of bringing it before the world. Centralization next steps in, in the
shape of circulating libraries, tliat, for a few guineas a year, supply
hooks throughout the kmf,dom and enable hundreds of copies to
do the work that shoild be done by thousands and hence it is
that, while ^nt editions of Enghsh works are generally small, so
very few of them ever reach second ones Popular as was Cap-
tain Marryat, his first editions were ■ts he himself informed me,
for some bme only 1 ''00 and had net then nsen above 2,000.
Of Mr Bulwers novels so unnetsallj popular the fii)F.t edition
never exceeded 2 500 and so it has been ind is with others.
With all Mr. Thackeray s popularity the sale of his books has,
I believe, rarely gone beyond 6,000 for the supply of above thirty
millions of people. Occasionally, a single author is enabled to
fix the attention of the public, and he is enabled to make a for-
tune — not from the sale of large quantities at low pnces, but of
moderate quantities at high prices The chief case of the kind
now in England is that of Mr. Dickens who sells for tnentj
shillings a book that coste about four shillings and sixpence to
make, and charges his fellow-laborers in the field of literature an
enormous price for the privilege of attaching to his numbers the
advertisements of their works, as is shown m the foUomng pari
graph from one of the journals of the day —
" Thus far, do wriler has sucoeeiled in drawing so large pecuniary profils from
the exetciae of his taJanta as Ctarlea Dickena. His last romance, " Bleak Jloiise,"
which appeared in monthly numbers, had so wide a circulation in that fbrm that it
became a valuable medium for advertising, so that before ita close llie few pages of
the tale were completely lost in sheets of advertisements which were Btilched to
them. The lowest price tor such an advertisement was £i sterling, and many were
paid for at Ihe rate of £5 and M. From this there is nothing improbable in the
aome £15,000 by his advertising sheets. The" Household Words'' produces an in-
come of about £1,000, though Diukens, having put it entirely in the hands of an
assistant editor, has nothing to do with it beyond furnishing a weelily article.
Through his talents alone he haa raised himself from tlie position of a newspaper
reporter to that of a literary CroHus."
Centralization produces the "cheap and abundant supply of
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 51
labor " required for the maintenance of the British manufacturing
system, and " cheap labor " furnishes Mr. Dickens with his " Oliver
Twist," his " Tom-all-alone's," and the various other characters
and situation by aid of whose delineation he is enabled, as a
German writer informs us, to have dinners
"at which tha highest aristocracy is glad to be present, and vfliere ho Equals them
in wealth, and furnialiea an intellectual banquet of wit and wisdom whicli they,
the highest and most refined circles, cannot imitate."
Centralination enables Mr. Dickens to obtsun vast sums by ad-
vertising the works of the poor authors by whom he is surrounded,
most of whom are not only badly paid, but insolently treated,
while even of those whose names and whoso works are well known
abroad many gladly become recipients of the jiublic charity. In
the zenith of her reputation, Lady Charlotte Bury received, as 1
am informed, but £200 ($960) for the absolute copyright of
works that sold for $7.50. Lady Blessington, celebrated as she
was, had but from three to four hundred pounds ; and neither
Marryat nor Bulwer ever received, as I believe, the selling price
of a thousand copies of their books as compensation for the co_py-
riglit.^ Such being the facts in regard to well-known authors,
some idea may be formed in relation to the compensation of those
who are obscure. The whole tendency of the "cheap labor" sys-
tem, so generally approved by English writers, is to destroy the
value of literary labor by increasing the number of persons who
mvsl look to the pen for means of support, and by diminishing
the market for its products. What has been the effect of the sys-
tem will now be shown by placing before you a list of the names
of all existing British authors whose reputation can be regarded
as of any wide extent, as follows ; —
Tennyson, Thackeray, Grote, McGulloch,
Carlyle, Bulwer, Macaiday, Hamilton,
Dickens, Alison, J. S, Mill, Faraday.
This list is very small as compared with that presented in the
same field five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight
is still greater than in number. Scott, the novelist and pool, may
certainly be regarded as the counter[)oise of much more than any
one of the writers of fiction in this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers,
and Campbell enjoyed a degree of reputition far exceeding that
1 This I had from Caplaiii Slarrvat liiii.sell.
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52 INTERNATIONAL COPYKIGHT.
of Tennyson. Wellington, the historian of his own campaigns,
would much outweigh any of the historians. Msilthus and Ri-
cardo were founders of a school that has greatly influenced the
policy of the world, whereas McCuiloch and Mill are but dis-
ciples in that school. Dalton, Davy, and "Wollaston will probably
occupy a larger space in the hlstorj of science than Sir Michael
Faraday, lai^e, even, as may be that assigned to him.
Extraordinary as is the existence of such i state of things in a
country cisuming so much to abound in wealth, it is yet more ex-
traordinary that we look around in \ain to see who are to replace
even these when age or death shall withdraw them from the
literary world. Of all here named M Tl k y is the only one
that has risen to reputation in th last t j rs, and he is no
longer young ; and even he seeks b d th t ward for his ef-
forts which is denied to him by th h p lab system at home.
Of the others, nearly, if not quit all h b for thirty years
before the world, and, in the nat 1 rs f things, some of
them must disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life.
If we seek their successors among the writers for the weekly or
monthly journals, we shall certainly fail to find tliem. Looking
to the Reviews, we find ourselves forced to agree with the Eng-
lish journalist, who informs his readers that " it is said, and with
apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as good as they
were." From year to year they have less the appearance of being
the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere
pecuniary compensation for their labor. In reading tbem we
find ourselves compelled to agree with the reviewer who regrets
to see that the centralization which is hastening the decline of the
Scottish universities is tending to cause the mind of the whole
youth of Scotland to be
" Cast in the mould of EnglisTi univcraitjea, inslitudona which, IVom Iheir very
completenesa, exercise on second-rate minds an influence unfavorable to originality
and power of thought." — North Britiik Sevtea, May 1853.
Their pupils are, as he says, strack " with one mental die," than
which nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific devel-
opment
Thirty years since. Sir Humphrey Davy spoke with his country-
men as follows: —
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Since then, Sir .lolin Ilerschel lias said to them r —
" Here whole branches of continental study are unaludied, and ;
unknown by name. It is in vain to conceal tha melancholy truth,
dropping behind." — Trealm on Svund.
A late writer, already quoted, says that learning is ii
The English people, as he informs us, have
" No longer time or patience for the luxury of a learned treatment of their in-
terflals; and a learned lawyer or slatestnen, instead of being eagerly sought for, ia
shunned as an impediment to public husinees." — North SHtiih Beniew.
The reviewer is, as he informs us, " far from regarding this
tendency, unfavorable as it is to present progress, as a sign of
social retrogression." He thinks that
" Reference to general principles for rules of immediate aution on the part of those
actually engaged in llie dispatch of businesa, must, from tlie delay which it neces-
aarily occasions, come to be regarded as a worse evil tlian action which is at
vnrisncB with principle altogether."
Demand tends to procure supply. Destroy the demand, and
the supply will cease. Science, whether natural or social, is not
in demand in Great Britsun, and hence the diminution of supply.
We have here the secret of literary and scientific decline, so
obvious to all who study English books or journaJs, or read the
speeches of English statesmen. Empiricism prevails everywhere,
and there is a universal disposition to avoid the study of prin-
ciples. The " cheap labor " system, which it is the object of the
whole British policy to establish, cannot be defended on principle,
and therefore principles are avoided. Centralization, cheap labor,
and enslavement of the body and the mind, travel always in com-
pany, and with each step of their prt^ress there is an increasing
tendency towards the accumulation of power in the hands of
men who should be statesmen, the difficulties of whose positions
forbid, however, that they should refer to scientific principles for
their government Action must be had, and immediate action in
opposition to principle is preferable to delay; and hence it is that
real statesmen are "shunned as an impediment to public busi-
ness." The greater the necessity for statesmanship, the more
must statesmen be avoided. The nearer the ship is brought to
the shoal, the more carefully must her captain avoid any reference
to the chart. That such is the practice of those charged with the
direction of the affairs of England, and such the philosophy of
those who control her journals, is obvious to alt who study the
proceedings of the one or the teachings of the other. From year
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to year the ship Ijecomes more difficult of maTiagement, and there
is increasing difficulty in finding responsible men to take the
helm. Such are the effects upon mind that have resulted from
that " destruction of nadonalities " required for the perfection of
the British system of centralization.
England is fast becoming one great shop, and traders have, in
general, neither time nor disposition to cultivate literature. The
little proprietors disappear, and (he day laborers who succeed
tbem can neither educate their children nor purchase books. The
great proprietor is an absentee, and he has little time for either
literature or science. From year to year the populalioii of the
kingdom becomes more and more divided into two great
classes; the very poor, with whom food and raiment require
al! the proceeds of labor, and the very rich who prosper by the
cheap labor system, and therefore eschew the study of principles.
"With the one class, books are an unattainable luxury, while with
the other the absence of leisure prevents the growth of desire for
their purchase. The sale is, theref e sm 11 nd h n t that
authors are badly paid. In stron t ast with tl e 1 t d le
of English books at home, is the at e t of al 1
shown in the following fects : Of tl e o ta e 1 o of the
" Modem British Essayists," there ha e be n old fi e y a s
no less than 80,000 volumes. Of Maca lay M 11 3
vols. 12mo., the sale has amounted to 60,000 volumes. Of Miss
Aguilar's writings, the sale, in two years, has been 100,000
volumes. Of Murray's " Encyclopedia of Geography," more than
50,000 volumes have been sold, and of McCuiloch's " Commercial
Dictionary," 10,000 volumes. Of Alexander Smith's poems, the
sale, in a few months, has reached 10,000 copies. The sale of
Mr. Thackeray's works has been quadruple that of England, and
that of the works of Mr. Dickens counts almost by millions of
volumes. Of " Bleak House," in all its various fonns — in news-
papers, magazines, and volumes — it has already amounted to
several hundred thousands of copies. Of Bulwer's last novel,
since it was completed, the sale has, I am told, exceeded 35,000.
Of Thiers's " French Revolution and Consulate," there have been
sold 32,000, and of Mont^ii's edition of Lord Bacon's woiks
4,000 copies.
If the sales of books were as great in England as they are here,
English authors would be abundantly paid. In reply it will be
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INTEUNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 55
said tlieir works are cheap here because we pay no copyright.
For pajment of the authors, iiowever, a very small suni would
be required, if the whole people of England could afford, as
they should be able to do, to purchase books. A contribution
of a shilling per head would give, as has been shown, a sum of
almost eight millions of dollars, sufficient to pay to fifteen hundred
salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries of State. Cen-
tralization, however, destroys the market for books, and the sale
is, therefore, small ; and the few successful writers owe their for-
tunes to the collection of large contributions made among a small
number of readers ; while the mass of authors live on, as did poor
Tom Hood, from day to day, with scarcely a hope of improvement
in their condition.
Sixty years since, Great Britain was a wealthy country, abound-
ing in libraries and universities, and giving to the world some of
the best, and best paid, writers of the ^e. At that time the
people of this country were but four millions, and they were poor,
while unprovided with either books or libraries. Since then they
have grown to twenty-six millions, millions of whom have been
emigrants, in general aiTiving here with nothing but the clothing
on their backs. These poor men have had every thing to create
for themselves — farms, roads, houses, libraries, schools, and col-
leges ; and yet, poor as they have been, they lurnish now a
demand for the principal products of English mind greater than
is found at home. If we can make such a market, why cannot
they ? If they had such a market, would it not pay their aiithors
to the full extent of their merits ? Unquestionably it would ; and
if they see fit to pursue a system tending to cheapen the services
of the laborer in the field, in the workshop, and at the desk, there
is no more reason for calling upon the people of this country to
make up their deficiencies towards those who contribute to their
pleasure or instruction by writing books, than there would be in
asking us to aid in supporting the hundreds of thousands of day
laborers, their wives and children, whom the same system con-
demns, unpitied, to the workhouse.
But, it will be asked, is it right that we should read the works
of Macaulay, Dickens, and others, without compensation to the
authors? In answer, it may be said, that we give them precisely
what their own countrymen have given to their Dallon, Davy,
WoUaston, Franklin, Parry, and the thousands of others who
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56 INTERNATIONAL COPYRtCHT.
1 f n I d th b I s of which books are composed — and
th w i give to the men among us engaged in
d n — f me. This, it will be said, is an iinsnb-
t t 1 t J t By 1 deemed it quite sufficient when he first
w A d t of his worlis, coming, as it seemed to
h f post ty Miss Bremer found no small reward for
h 1 b ak th high regard in which she was held ; and
t w m 11 ( J nt when, even in the wilds of the West, she
m t w th m p sons who would gladly have her travel free
f I b f tl delight she had afforded them. Miss
CI t 11 h d rs that " of one triumph " she was proud.
" It was," she says, " when I held in my band, for the first time,
one of my works, translated and published in America. My eyes
filled with tears. The bright dreams of youth again passed before
me. Ye Americans had planted the seed, and ye also approved
of the fruit !" This is the feeling of a writer that cultivat«s liter-
ature with some object in view other than mere profit It differs
entirely from that of English authors, because in England, more
than in any other country, book-making is a trade, earned on
exclusively with a view to profit ; and hence it is that the
character of English books so much declines.
But is it really true that foreign authors derive no pecuniary
advantage from the republication of their books in this country ?
It is not. Mr. Macaulay has admitted that much of his reputation,
and of the sale of his books at home, had been a consequence of
his reputation here, where his Essays were first reprinted. At the
moment of writing this, I have met with a notice of his speeches,
first collected here, from whicii the following is an extract : —
" We owe much to America. Not conlant with charming us with the works of
her native genius, she teaches ua also to appreciate our own. She steps in between
the timidity of a British author, a
using her ' good offices ' brings he
i«g aionicU.
If the people of England are largely indebted to America for
being made acquainted with the merits of their authors, are not
these latter also indebted to America for much of their pecuniary
reward ? Undoubtedly they are. Mr. Macaulay owes much of !iis
fortune to American publishers, readers, and critics ; and such is
the case to perhaps a greater ' extent with Mr, Carlyle, whose
papers were first collected here, and their merits thus made known
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 57
to his countrymen. Lamb's papers of " Elia " were first collected
here. It is to the diligence of an American publisher that De
Quincey owes the publication of a complete edition of his works,
now to be followed by a similar one in England. The papers of
Professor Wilson owe their separate republication to American
booksellers. The value of Mr. Thackeray's copyrights has been
greatly increa.sed by his receptioai here. So has it been with Mr.
Dickens. All of those persons profit largely by their fame abroad,
while the men who contribute to the extension of knowledge by
the publication of facts and ideas never reap profit from their
publication abroad, and are rarely permitted to acquire even fame.
Godfrey died poor. The merchants of England gave no fortune
to his children, and Hadley stole his fame. The people of that
country, who travel in steam-vessels, have given to the family of
Fulton no pecuniary reward, while her writers have uniformly
endeavored to deprive him of the reputation which constituted
almost the sole inheritance of his family. The whole people of
Europe are profiling by the discovery of chloroform ; but who
inquires what has become of the family of its unfoi'tuuate dis-
coverer? Nobody ! The people of England profit largely by the
discoveries of Fourcroy, Berzelius, and many other of the conti-
nental philosophers ; but do those who manufacture cheap cloth,
or those who wear it, contribute to the support of the families of ■
those philosophers ? Did they contribute to their support while
alive? Certainly not. To do so would have been in opposition
to the idea that the real contributors to knowledge should be
" hewei's of wood and di'awers of water " for the gentlemen who
dress up their facts and ideas in an attractive form and place them
before the world in the form of cloth or books.
We ai'e largely indebted to the labors of literary men, and they
should be well paid, but their claims to pecuniary reward have been
much exaggerated, because they have held the pen and have had
always a high degree of belief in their own deserts. Their right
in the books they publish is precisely similar to, and no greater
than, that of the man who culls the fiowers and arranges the
bouquets ; and, when that is provided for, their books are entitled
to become common property. English authors are already secured
in a monopoly for forty-two years among a body of people so large
that a contribution of a shilling a head would enable each and all
of them to live in luxury ; and if British policy prevents their
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58 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
couiitrynicTi from paying them, it is to the British Parliament they
should look for redress, and not to our Executive. When they
shall awaken to the fact that " cheap labor " with the spade, the
plough, and the loom, brings with it necessarily " cheap labor "
with the pen, they will become opponents, and cease to be advo-
cates of the system under which they suffer. All that, in the
mean time, we can say to them is, .that we protect ourown authors
by giving them a monopoly of our own immense and rapidly grow-
ing market, and that if they choose to come and live among us we
will grant them the same protection. We may now look to the
condition of our own literary men.
LETTER V.
> t lip d 1 tij th f th
o Ih LlElljt — thtfd tit
adw y tdtffts 1 thdip tf
It t d d n th d f tl rs
C t 1 t nt d t d t tl p pi f I Id p
g t ttuti t d ta f th wh p tl t
d tr lizat n t w d 1 t th p pi t t th 1 f
th PI t f m d I gh 1 ool th d te ^h
borhood. The first tends towards placing the man who has instruc-
tion to sell at a distance from those who need to buy it ; while the
other tends towards bringing the teacher to the immediate vicinity
of the scholars, and thus diminishing the cost of education. The
effects of the latter are seen in the fact that the new States, no less
than tlie old ones, are engaged in an efibrt to enable all, without
distinction of sex or fortune, to obtain the instruction needful for
enabling them to become consumers of books, and customers to
the men who produce them. Massachusetts exhibits to the world
182,000 scholars in her public schools ; New York, 778,000 in
the public ones, and 75,000 In the private ones ; and Iowa and
Wisconsin are laying the foundation of a system that will enable
them, at a future day, to do as much. Boston taxes herself
$365,000 for purposes of education, while Philadelphia expends
more than half a million for the same purposes, and exhibits
50,000 children in her public schools. Here we have, at once,
a great demand for instructors, offering a premium on intellect-
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ual effort, and its effect is seen in the mimerous associations of
teachers, each anxious to confer with the others in regard to
improvement in the modes of ediication. School libraries are
needed for the children, and already those of New York exhibit
about a million and a half of volumes. Books of a higher class
are required for the teachers, and here is created another demand
leading to the preparation of new and improved books by the
teachers themselves. The scholars enter life and next we find
numerous apprentices' libraries and mercantile libraries, producing
farther demand for books, and aiding in providing reward for those
to whom the world is indebted for them. Everybody miist learn
to read and write, and everybody must therefore have books ; and
to this universality of demand it Is due that tlie sale of those
required for early education is so immense. Of the works of
Peter Parley it counts by millions ; but if we take his three
historical books (price 75 cents each) alone, we find that it
amoimts to between half a million and a million of volumes. Of
Goodrich's United States it has been a quarter of a million. Of
Morse's Geography and Atlas (50 cents) the sale is said to be no
less than 70,000 per annum. Of Abbott's histories the sale is
said to have already been more than 400,000, while of Emerson's
Arithmetic and Reader it counts almost by millions. Of Mitchell's
several geographies it is 400,000 a year.
In other branches of education the same state of things is seen
to exist. Of the Boston Academy's collection of sacred music
the sale has exceeded 600,000 ; and the aggregate sa!e of five
books by the same author has probably exceeded a million, at a
dollar per volume.
Leaving the common schools we come to the hioh schools and
colleges, of which latter the names of no less tha 12f a e g n
in the American Almanac. Here again we hav de nt al at n
and its effect is to bring within reach of almost th wh I p |le
a higher degree of education than could be affo d d by tl n
mon schools. The problem to be solved is, as s ted by a nt
and most enlightened traveller, " How are citi to be n le
thinking beings in the greatest numbers?" Its ol ti n fo nd
in making of the educational fabric a great pyran 1 of wl h th
common schools form the base and the Smithsonian Institute the
apex, the intermediate places being filled with high schools, lyce-
ums, and colleges of various descriptions, fitted to the powers and
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60 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
the means of those who need instruction. All these make, of course,
demand for books, and hence it is that the sale of Anthon's series
of classics (averaging SI) aniounts, as I am told, to certainly not
less than 50,000 volumes per annum, while of the " Classical Dic-
tionary " of the same author ($4) not less than thirty thousand have
heen sold. Of Liddell and Scotfs " Greek Lexicon" ($5), edited
by Prof. Drisler, iLe sale has been not less than 25,000, and probably
much larger. Of Webster's 4to. " Dictionary " ($6) it has been, I
am assured, 60,000, and perhaps even 80,000 ; and of the royal 8vo.
one ($3.50). 250,000. Of Eolmar's French school books not less
than 150,00 volumes have heen sold. The number of books used
in the higher schools — text-books in philosophy, chemistry, and
other branches of science — is exceedingly great, and it would be
easy to produce numbers of which the sale is from five to ten
thousand per annum ; but to do so would occupy too much space,
and I must content myself with the few facts already given in
regard to this department of literature.
Decentralization, or local self-government, tends thus to place
the whole people in a condition to read newspapers, while the
same cause tends to produce those local interests which give
interest to the public journals, and induce men to purchase them.
Hence it is that their number is so large. The census of 1850
gives it at 2,625 ; and the increase since that time has been very
great The total number of papers printed can scarcely be under
600,000,000, which would give almost 24 for every person, old and
young, black and white, male and female, in the Union. But
recently the newspaper press of the United Kingdom was said
to require about 160,000 reams of paper, which would give about
75,000,000 of papers, or two and a half per head.
The number of daily papers was returned at 350, but it has
greatly increased, and must now exceed four hundred. Chicago,
which then was a small town, rejoices now in no less than 24
periodicals, seven of which are daily, and five of them of the
largest size. At St. Louis, which but a few years since was on
the extreme borders of civilization, we find several, and one of
these has grown from a little sheet of 8 by 12 inches to the largest
size, yielding to its proprietors $50,000 per annum, while Liver-
pool, Manchester, and Birmingham are still compelled to depend
upon their trs-weekly sheets. St. Louis itself furnishes the type,
and Louisville ftirnishes the paper. Everywhere, the increase in
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s (, ■! g e tt-r th n th t in the number of ncwspnpe s and tl c
increase of ibil tj iii both the city and country press greatet than
in either number or size These things are necessary conse
quences of that deeentnlizitioii nhich builds school houses and
provides teichers where centralization raises aimies and provides
generils The schools enable young men to read think and
write and the local newspaper is alwajs at hand in which to pub
hsh Beginning thus with the daily or weeklj journal the youth
of talent makes his way gradually to the monthly or quarterly
imgazine and ultimately to the independent book
Exannne nhere we may through the newspaper press there is
seen the icti\ t\ ihich ilways accompanies die knowledge that
men can rise m the world ;/ they loill but this is particularly
obvious in the dailj press of cities whose efforts to obtain infor
matioi and whose exertions, to liy it before the publ c are with
out a paiillel Centialization like that of the London Times,
furnishes its readers with br el paragraphs of telegraphic news
where deeen trail nation gives cilunms The New \ork Tnbune
furnishes, for t\o cents better papers than are given n London
for ten and it scatters them cicr tie ci untr\ by hundreds of
thousands Dccentral zation 11 educat ng the whole mit d of the
country and it is to this it is due that the American tamer is fur
nished with machines which are accordma t> the London -Times"
about twice js light in draught as the lightest of English
n athmes of the same descnption doin^ as much if not more
wjrk than the best of them and w th m ich less power dressing
the grain which they do not and which can be profitably disposed
of at one half ot at least 01 e thud less money than its Biitish
nvils — and is thus enabled to piirehi e books Central zation
on the other hand furnishes the Fnglibh farmer according to the
same lutbontj with 11 achines strong and dear enough to rob
him of all future improvements ind trcmendfusly hea\j either to
work < r to draw and thus depnves him of all pow r to educ ite
lis children or to purchase for himself e thei books or news
papers
heligious decentral zatioii exerts also a]owerful mfiuence on
the arrangemei ts for irnpirtino th t n str t on which prov des
puicl asers for books Tl e Methodist Snc ety with its gigantic
operations the Presbjtenin Board of Publication the Laptst
Assocnton the Sunday school and othei societies a e all mces
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62 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
santly at work creating readers. The effect of all these efforts for
the dissemmation of cheap knowledge is shown in the first
instance in the number of semi-monfhly, monthly, and quarterly
journals, representing every shade of politics and religion, and
eveiy department of literature and science.
'The number of these returned to the census was 175 ; but that
must, I think, have been even then much below the truth. Since
then it has been much increased. Of two of them, Putnam's and
Harper's, the first exclusively original, and the latter about two
thirds so, the sale is about two millions of numbers per annum ;
while of three others, published in Philadelphia, it is about a
million. Cheap as are these journals, at twenty-five cents each,
the sum total of the price paid for them by the consumers is
about $700,000. The quantity of paper required for a single one
of them is about 16,000 reams of double medium, being one
tenth as much as has recently been given as the consumption of
tbe whole newspaper press of Great Britain and Ireland. Every
pursuit in life, and almost every shade of opinion, has its periodi-
cal. A single city in Western New York furnishes no less than
four agricultural and horticultural journals, one of them published
weekly, with a circulation of 15,000, and the others, monthly, with
a joint circulation of 25,000. The "Merchants' M^azine," which
set the example for the one now published in London, has a circu-
lation of 3,500, The " Bankers' M^azine " also set the example
recently followed in England. Medicine and Law have their
numerous and well supported journals ; and Etental Surgery alone
has five, one of which has a circulation of 5,000 copies, while all
Europe has but two, and those of very inferior character.* North,
south, east, and west, the periodical press is collecting the opinions
of all our people, while centralization is gradually limiting the
expression of opinion, in England, to those who live in «nd near
London.
Upon this extensive base of cheap domestic literature rests
that portion of the fabric composed of reproduction of foreign
books, the quantities of some of which were given in my last.
The proportion which these bear to American books has been
thus given for the six months ending on the 30th of June last : —
^ It ie a remarkable fact tbat there should be in this country no less than four Col-
leges or Dental Soigery, while all Europe presents not even a single one.
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Kepubli cations
Original
Of these last, 17 were original translations.
We see. thus, that the proportion of domestic to foreign pro-
ducts is already more than three to one. How the sale of the
latter compares with that of the former, will be seen by the follow-
ing facts in relation to books of almost all sizes, prices, and kinds ;
some of which have been furnished by the publishers themselves,
whilst others are derived from gentlemen connected with the
trade whose means of information are such as warrant entire
reliance upon their statements.
Of all American authors, those of school-books excepted, there
is no one of whose books so many have been circulated as those
of Mr. Irving. Prior to the publication of the edition recently
issued by Mr. Putnam, the sale had amounted to some hundreds
of thousands ; and yet of that edition, selling at $1.25 per vohime,
it has already amounted to 144,000 vols. Of " Uncle Tom," the sale
has amounted to 295,000 copies, partly in one, and partly in two
volumes, and the total number of volumes amounts probably to
about 450,000.
Pricepet vol. Vnbmtet.
Of the two works of Miss "Warner, Queechy,
and the Wide, Wide World, the price and
sale have been .....
Fern Leaves, by Fanny Fern, in six months
Reveries of a Bachelor, and other books, by
Ike Marvel , . ■ . .
Alderbrook, by Fanny Forester, 3 vols.
Nortbup's Twelve Years a Slave ,
Novels of Mrs. Hentz, in three years .
Major Jones' Courtship and Travels
Salad for the Solitary, by a new author,
five months .....
Headley's Napoleon and his Marshals, Wash-
ington and his Glenerals, and other works
Stephen's Travels in Egypt and Greece
" " Yucatan and Centra! Amer
Kendall's Expedition to Santa Fe .
36 88
104,000
1 25
45,000
1 25
70,000
50
33,000
1 00
20,000
63
93,000
50
31,000
1 25
1 25
1 25
80,000
60,000
40,000
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ical Works
PHcepervd.
Volumes.
$3 00
16,000
1 25
8,000
2 50
14,000
1 00
12,000
1 00
30,000
2 50
60,000
75
100,000
2 00
280,000
3 00
Lynch's Expedition to the Dead Sea, 8vo.
" " " 12mo.
Western Scenes
Young's Science of Governmeni .
Seward's Life of John Quincy Adams ,
Frost's Pictorial History of the World, 3 vols.
Sparks' American Biography, 25 vols. ,
Encyclopeedia Americana, 14 vols.
Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers of Amer-
ica, 3 vols. .....
Barnes' Notes on the Gospels, Epistles, &
Aiken's Christian Minstrel, in two years
Alexander on the Psalms, 3 vols. .
Buist's Flower Garden Directory .
Cole on Fruit Trees
" Diseases of Domestic Animals.
Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees
" Rural Essays
" Landscape Gardening .
" Cottage Residences
" Country Homes .
Mahan's Civil Engineering . ' .
Leslie's Cookery and Receipt-books
Guyofs Lectures od Earth and Man
Wood and Bache's Medical Dispensatory
Dunglison's Medical Writings, in all 10 vols.
Pancoast's Surgery, 4to.
Rayer, Ricord, and Morcau's Si
(translations) ,
Webster's Works, 6 vols.
Kent's Commentaries, 4 vols.
Next to Chancellor Kent's work comes Greenleaf on Evidence,
8 vols., 3f 1 6.50 ; the sale of which has been exceedingly great,
but what has been its extent, I cannot say.
Of BJatchford'a General Statutes of New York, a local work,
price $4.50, the sale has been 3,000 ; equal to almost 30,000 of a
similar work for the United Kingdom.
How great is the sale of Judge Story's books can be judged
75
300.000
62
40,000
1 17
10,000
1 25
10,000
50
18,000
50
34,000
1 50
16,000
3 50
3,000
3 50
9,000
2 00
6,250
4 00
3.500
3 00
7,500
1 00
96,000
1 00
6,000
5 00
60,000
2 50
50,000
10 00 ■
4,000
15 00
5,600
2 00
46,800
3 38
84,000
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INTERJTATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 65
only from the fact that the copyright now yields, and for years past
has yielded, more than $8,000 per annum. Of the sale of Mr.
Prescott's works little is certainly known, but it cannot, I under-
stand, have been less than 160,000 volumes. That of Mr. Ban-
croft's History, has already risen, certainly to 30,000 copies, and I
am told it is considerably more ; and yet even that is a sale, for
such a work, entirely unprecedented.
Of the works of Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis,
Sedgwick, Sigoumey, and numerous others, the sale is exceedingly
great; but, as not even an approximation to the true amount can
be offered, I must leave it to you to judge of it by comparison
with those of less popular authors above enumerated. In several
of these cases, beautifully illustrated editions liave been published,
of which large numbers have been sold. Of Mr. Longfellow's
volume there have been no less than ten editions. These various
facts will probably siiffice to satisfy you that this country presents
a market for books of almost every description, unparalleled in the
In reflecting upon this subject, it is necessary to beiir in mind
that the monopoly, granted to authors and their families, is for the
term of no less than forty-two years, and that in that period the
number of persons subjected to it is likely to grow to little short of
a hundred millions, ivith a power of consumption that will probably
be ten times greater than now exists. If the Commentaries of Chan-
cellor Kent continue to maintain their present position, as they
probably will, may we not reasonably suppose that the demand for
them will continue as great, or nearly so, as it is at present, and
that the total sale during the period of copyright will reach a
quarter of a million of volumes ? So, too, of the histories of
Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.
Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary
labor, we may now inquire into its rewards.
Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of
young men and young women acting as teachers of others, while
qualifying themselves for occupying other places in life. Many of
them rise gradually to become teachers in high schools and pro-
fessors in colleges, while all of them have at hand the newspaper,
ready to enable them, if gifted with the power of expressing theni'
selves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous news-
papers require editors and contributors, and the amount appro-
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6b INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
priated to the payment of this class of" the commimity is a very
large one. Next come the magazines, many of which pay very
liberally. I have now before me a statement from a single pub-
lisher, in which he says that to Messrs. Willis, Longfellow, Bryant,
and Alston, his price was uniformly §50 for a poetical article, long or
short — and his readers know that tliey were generally very short ;
in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others it was from $25
to $40. In one case he has paid S25 per page for prose. To Mr.
Cooper he paid Sl,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval
biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate pub-
lication ; and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in
the magazine acts as the best of advertisements. To Mr. James
he paid $1,200 for a novel, leaving him also the copyright For
a. single number of the journal he lias paid to authors $l,,oOO. The
total amount paid for original matter by two magazines — the
selling price of which is $3 per annum — in ten years, has ex-
ceeded §130,000, giving an average of $13,000 per annum. The
Messrs. Harper inform me that the expenditure for literary and
artistic labor required for their magazine is $2,000 per month, or
$24,000 a year.
Passing upwards, we reach the producers of books, and here
we find rewards not, I believe, to be paralleled elsewhere. Mr.
Irving stands, I imagine, at the head of living authors for the
amount received for his books. The sums paid to the renowned
Peter Parley must have been enormously great, but wliat has been
their extent I have no means of ascertaining, Mr. Mitchell, the
geographer, has realized a handsome fortune from his school-
books. Professor Davies is nnderstood to have received more
than $50,000 from the series published by him. The Abbotts,
Emerson, and numerous other authors engaged in the preparation
of books for young persons and schools, are largely paid. Profes-
sor Anthon, we are informed, has received more than $60,000 for
his series of classics. The French series of Mr. Bolmar has yielded
him upwards of $20,000. The school geography of Mr. Morse is
stated to have yielded more than $20,000 to the author. A single
medical book, of one 8vo. volume, is understood to have produced its
authors $60,000, and a series of medical books has given to its au-
thor probably $30,000. Mr. Downing's receipts from his books
have been very large. Tlie two works of Miss Warner must have
already yielded her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much
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IBTEENATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 67
more. Mr. Headley is stated to liave received about «40,000 ;
and tlie few books of Ike Marvel have yielded him about S20,000 ;
a single one, " The Reveries of a Bachelor," produced more than
$4,000 in the first six months. Mrs. Stowe has been very largely
paid. Miss Leslie's Cookery and Receipt books have pmd her
$12,000. Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than
830,000 for the copyright of his religious works. Fanny Fern
. has probably received not less than 56,000 for the 12mo. volume
published but six months since. Mr. Prescott vi-as stated, several
years since, to have then received ©90,000 from his books, and I
have never seen it contradicted. According to the rate of com-
pensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft, the
present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000,
and he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale.
Judge Story died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than
$8,000 per annum ; 'and the amount has not, as it is understood,
diminished. Mr. Webster's works, in three years, can scarcely
have paid less than $25,000, Kent's Commentaries are under-
stood to have yielded to their author and his heirs more than
$120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period
only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as
the compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary
labor unexampled in history. What has been the amount received
by Professor Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second
only, in the legal line, to that of Chancellor Kent The price
paid for Webster's 8vo. Dictionary is understood to be fifty
cents per copy ; and if so, with a sale of 250,000, it must already
have reached $125,000. If now to this we add the quarto, at only
a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching to, and perhaps
exceeding, $180,000 ; more, probably, than has been paid for all
the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time. What
have been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow,
Bryant, Willis, Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but
it is well known that they have been very large. It is not, how-
ever, only the few who are liberally paid ; all are so who manifest
any ability, and here it is that we find the effect of the decentraliz-
ing system of this country as compared with the centralizing one
of Great Britain. There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for his
Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the
means of support. Dickens is a literary CriEsus, and Tom Hood
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68 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
dies leaving his family in hopeless poverty. Such is not here the
case. Any manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for
the publication of books. No sooner had the story of " Hot
Com " appeared in " The Tribune," than a dozen boeksellers were
applicants to the author for a book. The competition is here for
the purchase of the privilege of printing, and this competition is
not confined to the publishers of a single city, as is the case in
Britain. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Auburn and
Cincinnati, present numerous publishers, all anxious to secure the
works of writers of ability, in any department of literature ; and
were it possible to present a complete list of our well-paid authors,
its ■extent could not fail to surprise you greatly, as the very few
facts that have come to my knowledge in reference to some of the
lesser stars of the literary world have done by me. You will
observe that I have confined myself to the question of demand for
books and compensation to their authors, without reference to that
of the ability displayed in their preparation. That we may have
good books, all that is required is that we make a large market for
them, which is done here to an extent elsewhere unknown.
Forty years since, the question was asked by the " Edinburgh
Eeview," Who reads an American book ? Judging from the facts
here given, may we not reasonably suppose that the time is fast
approaching, when the question will be asked. Who does not read
American books ?
Forty years since, had we asked where were the Aomes of Amer-
ican authors, we should generally have been referred to very hum-
ble houses in our cities. Those who now inquire for them will
find their answer, in the beautiful volume lately published by
Messrs. Putnam and Co., the precursor of others destined to show
the literary men of this country enjoying residences as agreeable
as any that had been occupied by such men in any part of the.
world ; and in almost every case, those homes have -been due to
the profits of the pen. Less than half a century since, the race
of literary men was scarcely known in the country, and yet the
amount now paid for literary labor is greater than in Great Britain
and France combined, and will probably be, in twenty years more,
greater than in all the world beside. With the increase of num-
ber, there has been a corresponding increase in the consideration
in which they are held ; and the respect with which even unknown
authors are treated, when compared with the disrespect manifested
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 69
in England towards such men, will fee obvious, to all familiar with
tiie management of the journals of that country who read the
following in one of our principal periodicals ; —
"The edilor of Putnam's Monthly will give to every article forwarded for in-
sertion n the Miigii7 ne a careful Bxamination and when requested to do so will
return tha MS if not accepted
Here, the compefition is amouT the publishers to hui/ the pro-
ducts of literary labor whereis abroad the competition is to sell
them, and therefore is the treitment of our authors e\ennhen
unknown so different Long m'^y it continue to be so '
Such having been the result of half a century, during which we
have had to lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so
vast a body of readers, what may not be expected in the next half
century, during which the population will increase to a hundred
millions, with a power to consume the products of literary labor
growing many times faster than the growth of numbers ? If this
country is properly termed " the paradise of women," may it not be
as correctly denominated the paradise of authors, and should they
not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have done? Is
it wise in them to seek a change ? Their best friends would, I
think, unite with me in advising that it is not. Should they suc-
ceed in obtaining what they nuw desire, tlie day will, as I think,
come, when they will be satisfied that their real fi-iends had been'
those who opposed the confirmation of the treaty now before the
Senate.
LETTER VI.
We have commenced the erection of a groal literary and scien-
tific edifice. The foundation is already broad, deep, and well laid,
but it is seen to increase in breadth, depth, and strength, with every
step of increase in height; and the work itself is seen to assume,
from year to year, more and more the natural form of a true pyra-
mid. To the height that such a building may be carried, no living
man will venture to affix a limit. What is the teiidency to dura-
bility in a work thus constructed, the pyramids of Egypt and the
mountains of the Andes and of the Himalaya may attest. That
edifice is the product of decentralization.
Elsewhere, centralization is, as has been shown, producing the
opposite effect, narrowing the base, and diminishing the elevation.
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70 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
Having prospered under decentralization, our authors seek to in-
troduce centralization. Failing to accomplisli their object by the
ordinary course of legislation, they have had recourse to the execu-
tive power ; and thus the end to be accomplished, and the means
used for its accomplishment, are in strict accordance with each
other.
We are invited to grant to the authors and booksellers of Eng-
land, and their agent or agents here, entire control over a highly
important source from which our people have been accustomed to
derive their supplies of literary food. Before granting to these
persons any power here, it might be well to inquire how they have
used their power at home. Doing this, we find that, as is usually
the case with those enjoying a monopoly, they have almost uni-
formly preferred to derive their profits from high prices and small
sales, and have thus, in a great degree, deprived their countrymen
of the power to purchase books ; a consequence of which has been
that the reading community has, very generally, been driven to
dependence upon circulating libraries, to the injury of both the
authors and the public. The extent to which this system of high
prices in regard to school-books has been carried, and the danger
of intrusting such men with power, are well shown in the fact that
the same governmeot which has so recently concluded a copyright
treaty with our own, has since entered " into the bookselling trade
on its own account," competing " with the private dealer, who has
to bear copyright charges," The subjects of this " reactionary
step " on the part of a government that so much professes to love
free trade, are, as we are told, " the famous school-books of the
Irish national system." ' A new office has been created, " paid for
with a public salary," for " the issue of books to the retail deal-
ers ; " and the centralization of power over this important portion to
the trade is, we are told,^ defended in the columns of the "Times,"
as " tending to bring down the price of school-books ; for book-
sellers who possess copyrights, now sell their books at exorbitant
prices, and, by underselling them, the commissioners will be able
to beat them." ' Judging from this, it would seem almost necessary,
if this treaty is to be ratified, that there should be added some
provision authorizing our government to appoint commissioners for
the regulation of trade, and for " underselling " those persons who
'■ now sell their books at exorbitant prices." If it be ratified, we
1 Spectator, June i, 1853. 2 Ibul.
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
shall be only entering on the path of centralization ; and it may
not be amisH that, before ratification, we should endeavor to deter-
mine to what point it will probably carry us in the end.
The question is often asked, What difference can it make to the
people of this country whether tbey do, or do not, pay to the Eng-
lish author a few cents in return for the pleasure afforded by the
perusal of his book? Not very much, certainly, to' the wealthy
reader ; but as every extra cent is important to the poorer one, and
tends to limit his power to purchase, it may be well to calculate
how many cents would probably be required ; and, that we may do
so, I give you here a list ' of the comparative prices of English and
American editions of a few of the books that have been published
within the last few years : —
Engthk.
'a DictioDary of Manufecture!
on' a Enrope, cheapest edition
ubign^'B Refon
13 00
12 00
" My Novel '■
Lord Mabon's England
Macaula^'s England, pei
Campbell's Chief Justice!
" Lord Chance
Queens of England, 8 vot
Hallam'e Middle Ages ■
Arnold's Rome .
Liib of John Foster
Laj-ard's Nineveh, complete editio
Mrs. Somenille's Physical Scienci
Whewell'a Elements of Morality
Napier's Peninsular War
Thirlwall'e Greece, cheapest editio
Dick's PracticBl Astronomer
Jane Eyre
The difference, as we sec, between t
and in New York, of the first book ii
dollars, or almost three times as much as the whole price of the
American edition. To what is this extraordinary difference to be
attributed ? To any excess in the cost of paper or printing in
London ? Certainly not ; for paper and printers' labor are both
cheaper there than here. Is it, then, to the necessity for compen-
sating the author? Certainly not; for there are in this country
fifty persons as fully competent as Mr. Brande for the preparation
' Copied fi-om an article in the IJevr York Daily Times.
11 50
2 25
10 50
13 00
i 00
4 50
40
7 60
3 SO
2S 60
12 00
34 00
10 00
15 00
00
the selling price in London
.his list, is no less than eleven
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72 INTERNATIONAL COPTEIGHT.
of such a work, who would willingly do it for a dollar a copy, cal-
culating upon being paid out of a large sale. As the sde of books
in England is not large, it might be necessary to allow him two
dollara each; but even this would still leave nine dollars to" be
accounted for. Where does all this go ? Part of it to the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, part to the " Times," and other newspapers
and journals that charge monopoly prices for the privilege of adver-
tising, and the balance to the booksellers who " possess copyrights,"
and "sell their books at such exorbitant prices" that they have
driven the government to turn bookseller, with a view to bring down
prices ; and these are the very men to whom it is now proposed to
grant unlimited control over the sale of all books produced abroad
It will, perhaps, be said that the treaty contams a proviso that
the author shall sell his copyi-ight to an Amencan publisher, or
shall himself cause his book to be republished here buch a pro-
viso may be there, but whether it is so, or not, no one knows, for
every thing connected with this effort to extend the Executive
power is kept as profoundly secret as were the arrangements for
the Napoleonic coup d'etat of the 2d of December Secrecj and
prompt and decisive action are the characteristics of centralized
governments ■ — publicity and slow action those of decentralized
ones. Admit, however, that such limitations be found in the
treaty, by what nght »re they there ? The basis ot such a treaty
is the absolute nf,ht of the author to his book , and if thit be ad-
mitted, with what show of consistency or of justice can we under-
take to dictate to him whether he shall sell oi retain it — pnnt it
here or abroad ■' "With none, as I think.
Admit, howe\er, that he does print it, does the treaty require
that the market shall aluai/s be supplied? Perhaps it does, but
most probably it does not If it does, does it also provide for the
appointment of commissioners to see that the provision is always
complied with ? If it does not, nothing would seem to be easier
than to send out the plates of a large book, print off a small
edition, and by thus complying with the letter of the law, establish-
ing the copyright for the long term of forty-two years, the moment
after which the plates could be returned to the place whence they
came, and from that place the consumers could be supplied on
condition of paying largely to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to
the " Times," to the profits of Mr. Dickens' advertising sheet, to
the author, to the London bookseller, to his agent in America, and
,cb,Googlc
INTERHATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 73
the retail dealer here. In cases like this, and they would be nu-
merous, the " few cents " would probably rise to be many dollars ;
and no way can, I think, be devised to prevent their occurrence,
except to take one more step forward in centralization by the ap-
pointment of commissioners in variona parts of the Union, to see
that the market is properly supplied, and that the books offered
for sale have been actually printed on this side of the Atlantic.
If the treaty does provide for publication here, it probably al-
lows some Ume therefor, say one, two, or three months. It is, how-
ever, well-known that of very many books tlie first few weelts'
sales constitute so important a part of the whole that were the
publisher here deprived of them, the hook would never be repub-
lished. No one could venture to print until the time had elapsed,
and by that time the English publisher would so well have occu-
pied the ground with the foreign edition that publication here
would be effectually stopped. Even under the present ad valorem
system of duties this is being done to a great extent One, two,
or three hundred copies of lai^e works are cheaply furnished, and
the market is thus just so far occupied as to forbid the printing of
an edition of one or more thousands — to the material injury of
paper-makers, printers, and book-hinders, and without any corres-
ponding benefit to the foreign author. Under the proposed sys-
tem this would be done to a great extent.
Admit, however, that the spirit of the law be fully complied
with, and let us see its effects. Mr. Dickens sells his book in
England for 21s. (S5.00) ; and he will, of course, desire to have
for it here as large a price as it will hear. Looking at our prices
for those books which are copyright and of which the sale is
large, he finds that " Bleak House " contains four times as much as
the " Reveries of a Bachelor," which sells for $1,25, and he vrill be
most naturally led to suppose that $S is a reasonable price. The
number of copies of his book that has been supplied to American
readers, through newspapers and magazines, is certainly not less
than 250,000, and the average cost has not been' more than fifty
cents, giving for the whole the sum of . . . SI25,000
To supply the same number at his price would cost . 750,000
Difference • $626,000
Of Mr. Bulwei^'s last work, the number that has
been supplied to American consumers is probably but
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74 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
about two thirds as great, and tlie difference might not
amount to more than $350,000
Mr. Macaulay would not be willing to sell his book
more cheaply than that of Mr. Bancroft's is sold, or
$2 per volume, and he might ask $2.50. Taking it
at the former price, the 125,000 copies that have been
sold would cost the consumer . . . $500,000
They have been supplied for . . . 100,000
The difference would be , . . . 5400,000
Mr, Alison's work would make twelve such volumes
as those of Mr. Bancroft, and his price would not be
less than $25. The sale has amounted, as I under-
stand, to 25,000 copies, which would give as the cost
of the whole $625,000
The price at which they have been sold
is $5, giving 125,000
Difference $500,000
Of " Jane Eyre " there have been sold 80,000, and if
the price had been similar to that of " Fanny Fem,"
they would have cost the consumers , $100,000
They have cost about .... 25,000
Difference $75,000
Total result of a "few cents " on five books . , $1,950,000
"Under the system of international copyright, one of two things
must be done — either the people must be taxed in the whole of
this amount for the benefit of the various persons, abroad and at
home, who are now to be invested with the monopoly power, or
they must largely diminish their purchases of literary food.
The quantity of books above given cannot be regarded as more
than one twentieth of the total quantity of new ones annually
printed. Admit, however, that the total were but ten times
greater, and that the differences were but one fourth as great, it
would be required that this sum of $1,950,000 should be multiplied
two and a half times, and that would give about five millions of
dollars ; which, added to the sum already obtained, would make
seven millions per annum ; and yet we have arrived only at the
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 75
commencement of the operation. All these hoolts would require
to be reprinted in the next year, and the next, and so on, and for
the long period of fortj-two years the payment on old books would
require to be added to those on new ones, until the sum would be-
come a very startling one. To enable us to ascertain what it
must become, let us see what it would now be had this system
existed in the past. Every one of Scott's novels would still be
copyright, and such would be the case with Byron's poems, and
with all other books that have been printed in the last forty-two
ye^rs, of which the annual sale now amounts to many millions of
volumes. To the present price of these let us add the charge of
the author, and the nionopoiy chaises of the English and Ameri-
can publishers, and it will be found quite easy to obtain a further
sum of five millions, which, added to that already obtained, would
make twelve millions per annum, or enough to give to one in every
four thousand males in the United Kingdom, between the s^es of
twenty and sixty, a salary far exceeding that of our Secretaries of
State. Let this treaty be. confirmed, and let the consumption
of foreign works continue at its present rate, and payment of this
sum must be made. We can escape its payment only on condition
of foregoing consumption of the books.
The real cause of difficulty is not to be found in " the few
cents " required for the author, but in the means required to be
adopted for their collection. Everybody that reads " Bleak House,"
or "Oliver Twist," would gladly pay their author some cents, however
unwilling he might be to pay dollars, or pounds. So, too, every-
body who uses chloroform would willingly pay something to its
discoverer ; and every one who believes in and profits by homceo-
pathic medicines would be pleased to contribute " a few cents "
for the benefit of Hahnemann, his widow, or his children. A sin-
gle cent paid by all who travel on steam vessels would make the
family of Fulton one of the richest in the world ; but how collect
these " few cents " ? Grant me a monopoly, says the author, and I
will appoint an agent, who shall supply other agents with my books,
and I will settle with him. Grant ris a monopoly, say the represen-
taUves of Hahnemann, and we wilt grant licenses, throughout the
Union, to numerous men who shall be authorized to practice
homoeopathically and collect our taxes. Were this experiment
tried, it would be found that millions would be collected, out of
which they would receive tens of thousands. Grant us a mo-
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/t) INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
nopoly, might say the representatives of Fulton, and we will per-
mit no vessels to be built without license from us, and our aoents
will collect "a few ceats" from each passenger, by which we shall
be enriched. So they might be ; but for every cent that reached
them the community would be taxed dollars in loss of time and
comfort, and in extra charges. It is the monopoly priviJeire, and
not the " few cents," that makes the difficulty.
We are, however, advised bj the advocates of this treaty that
English authors must be " required " to present their books in
American " mode and dress," and that regard to their own int^-
ests will cause them to_be presented " at moderate prices for
general consumption." If, however, they have acted differently at
home, why should they pursue this course here ? That they have
so acted, we have proof in the fact that the British government
has just been forced to turn. bookseller, with a view to restrain the
owners of copyrights in the exercise of power. Wlio, again, is
to determine what prices are really " moderate " ones ? The
authors ? Will Mr. Macaulay consent that his books shall be
sold for less than those of Mr. Bancroft or Mr. Prescott ? As-
suredly not. The bookseller, then ? Will he not use his power
in reference to foreign books precisely as he does now in regai-d to
domestic ones ? If he deems it now expedient to sell a 12mo
volume for a dollar or a dollar and a quarter, is it probable that
the ratification of this treaty will open his eyes to the fact that it
would be better for him to sell Mr. Dickens's works at fifty cents
than at three dollars? Scarcely so, as I think. It is now about
thirty years since the » Sketch Book " was printed, and the cheapest
edition that has yet been published sells for one dollar and twenty-
five cents. " Jane Eyre " contains probably about the same quantity
of matter, and sells for twenty-five cents. Of the latter, about
80,000 have been printed, costing the consumers S20,000 ; but if
they were to purchase the same quantity of the former, they would
pay for them $100,000 ; difference, 180,000. What, now, would
become of this large sum? But little of it would reach the
author;^ not more, probably, than $10,000. Of the remaining
$70,000, some would go to printers, paper-makers, and book-
binders, and the balance would be distributed among the pub-
lisher, the trade-sale auctioneers, and tbo wholesale and retail
dealers ; the result being that the public would pay five dollars
where the author received one, or perhaps the half of one. We
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 77
have here the real cause of difficulty. The monopoly of copy-
right can be preserved only by connecting it with the monopoly of
publication, "Were it possible to say that whoever chose to pub-
lish the " Sketch Book "might do so, on paying to its author " a few
cents," the difficulty of this donhk monopoly would be removed ;
but no author would consent to this, for he could have no certainty
that his hook might not be printed by unprincipled men, who
would issue ten thousand while accounliiig to him for only a single
thousand. To enable him to collect his dues, he must have a
mpnopoly of publication.
It may be said that if he appropriate to his use any of the com-
mon property of which books are made up, and so misuse his
privilege as to impose upon his readers the payment of too hea\'y
a tax, other persons may use the same facts and ideas, and enter
into competition with him. In no other case, however, than in
those of the oivners of patents and copyrigiits, whore the public
recognizes the existence of exclusive claim to any portion of the
common property, does it permit the party to fix the price at which
it may be sold. The right of eminent domain is common prop*
erty. In virtue of it, the community takes possession of private
property for public purposes, and frequently for the making of
roads. Not unfrequently it delegates to private companies this
power, but it always fixes the rate of charge to he made to per-
sons who use the road. This is done even when general laws are
passed authorizing all who please, on compliance with certain
forms, to make roads to suit themselves. In such cases, limitation
would seem to he unnecessary, as new roads could be made if the
tolls on old ones were too high ; and yet it is so well understood
that the making of roads does carry with it monopoly power, that
the rates of charge are always limited, and so limited as not to
permit the road-raakers to obtain a profit disproportioned to the
amount of their investments. In the case of authors there can be
no such limitation. They must have monopoly powers, and the
law therefore very wisely limits the time within which they may
be exercised, as in the other case it limits the price that may be
charged. In France, the prices to be paid to dramatic authors
are fixed by law, and all who pay may play ; and if this could be
done in regard to all literary productions, permitting all who paid
to print, much of the difficulty relalive to copyright would be
removed; but this course of operation would be in direct oppo-
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78 INTEKNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
sition to the views of publishers wlio advocate this treaty od the
ground that it would add to " the security and respectahllity of
the trade." They would prefer to pay for the copyright of every
foreign book, because it would bring with it monopoly prices and
monopoly profits, both of which would need to be paid by the
consumers of books. To the paper-maker, printer, and book-
binder, called upon to supply one thousand of a book for the few,
where before they had supplied ten thousand for the many, it
would be small consolation to know that they were thereby build-
ing up the fortunes of two or three large publishing houses that
had obtained a monopoly of the business of republication, and
were thus adding to the " security and respectability of the trade."
As little would probably be derived from this source by the father
of a family who found that he had now to pay five dollars for what
before had cost but one, and must therefore endeavor to borrow,
where before he had been accustomed to buy, the books required
for the amusement and instruction of his children.
Our State of New Jersey levies a transit duty of eight cents per
ton on all the merchandise that crosses it. Had t^ imposition of
this tax been accompanied by a law permitting all who chose to
make roads, no one would have complained of it, as it would have
been little more than a fair tax on the property of the railroad
and other companies. Unfortunately, however, the course was
different To the company that collected it was granted a mo-
nopoly of the power of transportation, and that power has been so
used that while the State received hut eight cents the transporters
charged three, five, six, and eight dollars for work that should
have been done for one. The position in which the authors are
necessarily placed Ls precisely the one in which our State has
voluntarily placed itself To enable them to collect their dues,
some person or persons must have a monopoly of publication, and
they must and will collect five, ten, and often twenty dollars for
every one that reaches the author. The Union would gain largely
by paying into our treasury thrice the sum we receive for transit
duty, on the simple condition that we abolished the monopoly of
transportation ; and it would gain far more largely by doing the
same with foreign authors. K justice does really call upon us to
pay them, our true course would be to do it directly fi-om the
Treasury, placing, if necessary, a million of dollars annually at the
disposal of the British government, upon the simple condition that
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 79
it releases us from all claim to the monopoly of publication.
Such a release would be cheap, even at two millions ; enough to
give $4,000 a year to five hundred persons, and that number
would certainly include all who can even fancy us under any
obligation to them. My own impression is, that no such payment
is required by justice, either as regards our own authors or foreign
ones. Of the former, all can be and are well paid, who can pro-
duce hoohs that the public are willing to read, and no law that could
be uiade would secure payment to those who cannot. Their mo-
nopoly extends over a smaller number of persons than does the
English one ; and if the more than thirty millions of people who
are subject to the latter cannot support their few writers, the
cause of difEculty is to be found at home, and there must the
remedy be applied. Nevertheless, by adopting the course sug-
gested, we should certainly free ourselves from any necessity for
choosing between the payment of many millions annually to
authors and the men who stand between them and the public, on
the one hand, and of dispensing largely with the purchase of
books, on the other. If the nation must pay, the fewer persons
through whose hands the money passes the smaller will be the
cost to it md the greater the gain to authors.
The ratification of the treaty would impose upon us a very large
amount of taxation that must inevitably be paid either in money
or in ibshnence from intellectual nourishment ; and our authors
should be ible to sitisfy themselves that the advantage to them
would bear some proportion to the loss inflicted upon others.
Would it do so ? I think not. On the contrary, they would find
their condition greatly impaired. All publishers prefer copyright
books, because, having a monopoly, they can charge monopoly
profits. To obtain a copyright, they constantly pay considerable
sums at home for editorship of foreign books ; but fi-om the mo-
ment that this treaty shall take effect, the necessity for doing this
will cease, and thus will our literary men be deprived of one con-
siderable source of profit. Again, literary labor in England is
cheap, because of want of demand ; hut international copyright,
by opening to it our vast market, will quicken the demand, and
many more books will be produced, the authors of all of which
will be competitors with our own, who will then possess no advan-
tages over them. The rates of American authors will then fall
precisely as those of the British ones will rise ; and this result will
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80 INTEEKATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
be produced as certainly as the water in the upper chamber of a
canal lock will fall as that in the lower one is made to rise. On
one side of the Atlantic literary labor is well paid, and on the
other it is badly paid. International copyright wi!l establish a
level ; and how much reason our authors have to desire that it
shall be established, I leave it for them to determine.
The direct tendency of the system now proposed will be found
to be that of diminishing the domestic competition for the pioduc-
tion of hooks, and increasing our dependence on foreignei's for
the means of amusement and instruction ; and yet the confirma-
tion of tlie treaty is urged on the ground that it will increase the
first and diminish the last. If it would have this latter effect, it is
singular that the aiithors of England should be so anxious for the
measure as they are. It is not usual for men to seek to diminish
the dependence of others on themselves.
These, however, are, as I think, but a small part of the incon-
veniences to which onr authors are now proposing to subject them-
selves. They have at present a long period allowed them, during
which they have an absolute monopoly of the particular forms of
words they offer to the reading public ; and this monopoly has, in
a very few years, become so productive, that authorship offers per-
haps larger profits than any other pursuit requiring the same
amount of skill and capital. Twenty years hence, when the mar-
ket shall be greatly increased, it may, and as I think will, become
a question whether the monopoly has not been granted for too
long a period, and many persons may then he found disposed to
unite with Mr. Macjiulay in the belief that the disadvantages of
long periods preponderate so greatly over their advantages, as to
make it proper to retrace in part our steps, limiting the monopoly
to twenty-one years, or one half the present period. The inquiry
may then come to be made, what is the present value of a mo-
nopoly of forty-two years, as compared with what would he paid
for one of twenty-one years ; and when it is found that, in nine
hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, one will sell for
exactly as nmch as the other, it will perhaps he decided that no
reason exists for maintaining the present law, even if no change
he now made. Suppose, however, the treaty to be confirmed,
establishing the monopoly of foreigners in our market, and that
the people who have heen accustomed to consume largely of
cheap literature now find themselves deprived of it, would not this
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INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT 81
tend to hasten the period at which the existing law would come
under consideration ? I cannot but think it would. The common
school makes a great demand for school-hooks, and both make a
great demand for newspapers. All of these combine to make a
demand for cheap books among an immense and influential por-
tion of our community, that cannot jet afford to pay $1.25 for
" Fern Leaves " or for the " Reveries of a Bachelor," although
they can well afford 25 cents for a number of " Harper's Maga-
zine," or for " Jane Eyre." Let iis now suppose that the novels of
Dickens and Bulwer, the books of Miss Aguilar, and those of
other authors with which they have been accustomed to supply
themselves, should at once be raised, to mojiopoly priues and thus
placed beyond their reach, would it not produce inquiry into the
cause, and would not the answer be that we had given English
authors a monopoly in our market to enable our own to secure a
monopoly in that of England ? Would not the suffei'ers next in-
quire by what process this had been accomplished, seeing that the
direct representatives of the people bad always been so firmly op-
posed to it ; and would not tbe answer be that the literary men of
the two countries bad formed a combination for the purpose of tax-
ing the people of both ; and that when they had failed to accom-
plish their object by means of legislation, they bad induced the
Executive to interpose and make a law in tbeir favor, in defiance
of the well-known will of the House of Representatives ? Under
such circumstances, would it be extraordinary if we should, within
three years from the ralificalion of the treaty, see the commence-
ment of an agitation for a change in the copyright system ? It
seems to me that it would not.
The time for the arrival of this Station would probably be
hastened by an extension of the system of centralization that
would next be claimed ; for the present measure can be regarded
as little more than the entering wedge for others. France and
England profit enormously by setting the fashions for the world.
New patterns and new articles are invented that sell in the first
season for treble or quadruple the price at which they are gladly
supplied ill the second ; and it is by aid of the perpetual changes
of fashion that foreigners so much control our markets. Kecenlly,
our maniifiicturers have been enabled to reproduce many new arti-
cles in very short time, and this has tended greatly to reduce
tbe profits of foreigners, who are of course dissatisfied. Copyrights
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82 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
are now granted in both those countries for new patterns, new
forms of clothing, &c. &c., and our next step will be towards the
arrangement of a treaty for, securing to the inventorof a print,
or a new fashion of paletot, the monopoly of^its production in
our markets ; and when the clmm for this shall be made, it will
be found to stand on precisely the same ground with that now
made in behalf of the producers of books, and must be granted.
The Frenchman will then have the exclusive right of supplying us
with new mousselines de laine, and the Englishman with new carpets
and new forms of earthenware ; and we shall be told that that is
the true mode of developing manufacturing and artistic skill among
ourselves. How much farther the system may be carried it is
difflcTilt to tell, for, when we shall once have established the system
of regulating foreign and domestic trade by treaty, the House of
Representatives will scarcely be troubled with much discussion of
such affairs. Extremes generally meet, and it will be extraordi-
nary, if progress in that direction shall not be followed by progress
in the other, until our authoi-s shall, at length, become perfectly
satisfied of the accuracy of Mr. Macaulay, when he told the British
authors, then claiming an extension of their monopoly to sixty
years, that " the wholesome copyright " already existing would
"share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright" they
desired to create.^ They could scarcely do better than study his
speech at length. At present, they are ill-advised, and their best
friends will be those senators who, like Mr. Macaulay, shall oppose
their literary countrymen.
Admitting, however, that the measure proposed should not in
any manner endanger existing privileges, what would be the gain
to our authors in obtaining the control of the British market, com-
pared with what they would lose from surrendering the control of
our own ? In the former, the sale of books is certainly not lai^e.
Few have been more popular than Tupper's " Proverbial Philoso-
phy," and the price has been, as I learn, only 7s., or $1,68. Never-
theless, a gentleman fully informed in regard to it assures me that
in fifteen years the average sale has been but a thousand a year,
or 15,000 in all.^ Compare this with the sale of a larger number
1 Macaulay-s Speechtc, toI. i. p. 403.
S The Bala hare has been 200,000, at an average price of 50 cents. Hart it been
eopyriRht. the price wonld have been double, anil the " few cents " would have
made a difference OQ this single book of $100,000. The same gcDtlaman to whom I
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INTEENATIOSAL COPTEIGHT. 83
of the " Reveries of it Bachelor," or of thrice the quantity of " Fem
Leaves," at but little lower prices, in the short period of six months,
and it will be seen how inferior is the foreign market to the domes-
tic one. Were it otherwise — were the market of Britain equal to
our own — could it be that we should so rarely hear of her literary
men, dependent on their own exertions, but as being poor and
anxious for public employment ? Were it otherwise, should we need
now to be told of the " utter destitution "of the widow and chil-
dren of Hogg, so widely known as author of " The Queen's Wake,"
and as " The Shepherd " of " Blackwood's Magazine ? " Assuredly
not. Had literary ability been there in the demand in which it
now is here, he would have written thrice as much, would have
been thrice as well paid, and would have provided abundantly for
his widow and his children. Nevertheless, our authors desire to
trade off this great market for the small one in which he shone and
left his family to starve, and thus to make an exchange similar to
that of Glaucus when he gave a suit of golden armor for one of
What, however, are the prospects for the future ? Will the
British market grow ? It would seem not, for death and emigra-
tion are diminishing the populrition, and the people who remain
are in a state of constant warfare with their employers, who
promised " cheap food " that they might obtain " cheap labor," and
now offer low wages in connection with high-priced corn and beef.
The people who receive such wages cannot buy books. Hundreds
of thousands of persons are now out "on strike," or are "locked
out " by the gentlemen who advocate tliis " cheap labor " system ;
and the result of al! this extraordinary cessation from labor can be
none other than the continued growth of poverty, intemperance,
and crime. The picture that is presented by that country is one
of unceasing discord between the few and tlie many, in which the
former always triumph ; and a careful examination of it cannot
result in leading us to expect an increase in the desire to purchase
books, or in the ability to pay for them.
Having looked upon that picture, let our authors next look to
am indebted for the above facts intomiB methat he has paid to the author of a ISmo
volume of 200 pages more Ihan S23,00O, and could not now purchase the copyright
for 810,000; that for another small 12ino volume he has paid $7,000, and eicpeota
to pay as much more; that to a third author hia payments for the j-eat haye been
$2500, and are likely to continue at that ratefor years to come; and that it would
be easy (o furnish other and numerous cases of similar kind.
,cb,Googlc
88 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
made brutal by miseiy uid priTadou." Fnither, let him read in the same jonmal
its description of the almost universal dishonesty wliich has resulted from a total
repudiation of the idea that internationaJ morahty could exist ; and then determine
for himself if, under a different Eyatem, Britain miglit not have made at home a
market fbr her authors that would far more than have compensated for depriyatioa
of that one they non so anxiously covet abroad-
Seeking further evidonce in reference to this important question, let bim then
turn to the " North British Review " for the current month and study the sodal
SOT^ of Britain-
For more tlian a century she has been sowing the wind, carrying, and in the direct
ratio of their connection ivitli her, poverty and slavery into important countries of the
earth. She is now only reaping the whirlwind. When her literary men shall have
begun to teach her people this — when they shall have said to them that public im-
morality and private morality cannot co-esist — when they shall have commenced
to repudiate the idea that tbs end sanctifieB the means — then, iut not lif2 f^en, the
time may, perhaps, have come for lecturing the world on the moral side of the
question of Intern alional Copyright. To this moment, so far as the writer's memory
eerves him, no one of them has yet entered on the performance of this important
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